"They monitored me and made sure I was ok"

I am going through diagnosis for either pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer and had an appointment for a biopsy to be taken of the lump I have at the head of my pancreas. I am also a T2 diabetic.

I had to be "nil by mouth" from 9am in the morning for my "appointment" at 1. 15pm. Now let me first make it perfectly clear that I have no complaints as to the staff, but the way the whole department is set up. When I got there I was told that everyone who is called in is called in for around 1pm! So there were a lot of people all there for the supposed same appointment time. No wonder people get frustrated when they have been sitting waiting for nearly 4 hours before being seen.

Then to be told that the machine to be used for one's appointment is the only one in this huge department because the other one wasn't working. Then being told that the machine had to be rebooted and it wasn't accepting it.

As I hope everyone who reads this will appreciate, by this time my pain medication had worn off so I was in pain, I was hungry and very thirsty and kept having sweats and periods of shaking which tell me that my blood sugars are getting very low.

Again I am not criticising the staff. They monitored me and made sure I was ok but this could have all been avoided if a little thought had gone into my appointment in the first place. The department is a wonderful one.

Apart from a sore throat I felt no pain from the procedure at all and must recommend Dr Fox and his staff for this. However, like the rest of the NHS this department needs funding so that the wonderful backbone of this country's health service, its staff, can do the best job they can.