"Orthopeadics waiting times"

Last autumn my previous fit and very active father in law developed knee pain which quickly increased over the course of a few months to mean that he could no longer carry out his normal activities. Following a confusing diagnosis from minor injuries, then the GP and physio he decided to pay for a private orthopaedic consultation and MRI at the suggestion of the physio. He also sought a second private orthopaedic opinion which confirmed the recommended treatment of a unicompartmental knee arthroplasty. He returned to his GP, who had previously refused to refer him to NHS orthopaedics, but who now agreed to do so. Frustratingly my father in law has now been on the waiting list for a consultation for 4 months and is being told that he will wait another 4 months just to be seen and further confirm this diagnosis and treatment.

This seems like a ludicrous and far from person centred approach to managing a waiting list, a patient who has a consensus opinion on diagnosis and treatment has to wait 8 months ( a not insubstantial amount of time particularly when you are 75!) to get a third diagnosis wasting yet further time and resources. Given that the waiting time is so long surely an orthopaedic consultants time would be better spent giving an opinion to someone who doesn’t have a diagnosis?

I’m keen to hear how such a system benefits patients and makes best use of available resources in  a clearly already stretched specialty.