"Treatment stopped halfway through?"

I was started on a course of roaccutane. The first meeting with the consultant dermatologist was wonderful, very friendly, fully informative and I was completely advised and involved in the decision to proceed.

One of the stipulations of taking roaccutane is that you must come to a monthly clinic to have urine/blood tests in order to refill your prescription. This means you can only get 28 days of tablets at a time (if you are female). I was fully accepting of this when starting my course.

After this you are seen by a nurse for the monthly clinic. On my third monthly visit I was told that the nurse would make my appointment and send it on to me, whereas the past two times I had made the appointment myself at the front desk.

After waiting for two weeks I still had not received any confirmation of appointment and upon ringing was told the nurse had never 'checked my file out', meaning no appointment was made. When then trying to book an appointment I was told there was nothing available until three months later in the roaccutane clinic. As stated above you can only get 28 days of prescription at a time meaning after three months on the medicine I would then supposedly have to stop for three months before being seen. I find this absolutely ridiculous.

After much persistance, the very helpful and friendly secretaries agreed to book me in on the correct date. However, I was rang back the next day to be told that it had been cancelled and that I was not allowed to be booked in until the next available appointment.

Apparently this is a huge problem they are having with roaccutane patients and it sounds like they may be understaffed. Whilst I appreciate that this is the situation I still think it is completely unacceptable so if you are looking to get a course of roaccutane I would try a different hospital, as the service here has been completely inconsistent and frankly unprofessional - I don't quite understand how you can start someone off on a supposedly continuous treatment to then tell them that they can't get it half way through their course.