"Appointments at St Mary's, Manchester"

My wife needs a scan at St Mary's in Manchester. Her GP considers it to be urgent and has organised this quite quickly. An appointment arrives but she will be out of the country. When she rang and eventually got through, someone told her she will have to go into the queue.

Now they have given her another appointment which is only marginally more convenient and she may be able to make it but it is later rather than earlier. Hopefully there is nothing wrong but we never know.

Yet last year when our son needed a tonsillectomy, Wythenshawe hospital sent us a phone number so we could make the appointment at a convenient time - both the original consultation and the operation itself.

Why cannot St Mary's pull its socks up and recognise that patients have schedules as well? Patients are not sitting round waiting for the hospital to serve them. As it was an urgent request from the GP, they should either have rung or written asking her to call them. It is quite appalling. You see why people go private.