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Discharged from the service and back to my GP

Started 3 November 2025 · 18 replies · 148 hearts · read 2.1k times

OsricSalisbury, UK · 3 November 2025
9 months ago

A question rather than an update: Discharged from the service and back to my GP

Anyone else here in my part of the world? I would like to compare notes.

The pathway where I am appears to be different from every account I have read, and I would like to know whether that is the area or me.

The seasonal side of this is a real planning problem where I live and I have not seen it discussed anywhere.

The forms and the sequence are what I am stuck on rather than anything clinical, and the sequence appears to be local knowledge.

I will come back and update with actual timings, because published times and real times are not the same thing.

49

FionnualaDundalk, IE
#1

My pharmacist has been the most consistently available person in the whole system and I would say that to anybody here.

9

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK
#2

I want to name that travel and distance are real barriers rather than inconveniences, and this circle takes them seriously.

10me too 5

WystanCheltenham, UK
#3

Nothing here is medical advice and local pathways change, so the person at your practice will always know more than any thread.

8

MarkCoventry, UK
#4

Fionnuala — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

The travel to the specialist centre was the main cost for me and moving to telephone reviews solved most of it.

6

PerryCardigan, UK
#5

The waiting list where I am was quoted at eighteen months and turned out to be closer to eleven, so it is worth asking again rather than assuming.

10me too 9

PriyaReading, UK
#6

Coming back to say I got there, that it took fourteen months from first asking, and that the care since has been good.

9

TabbyMargate, UK
#7

Priya, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

My GP referred me and then nothing happened for seven months, and one phone call to the service found that the referral had never arrived.

8

KateBelfast, NI
#8

What I found is that the criteria vary by area more than anybody admits, and my neighbouring trust had a completely different pathway.

6

FitzLimerick, IE
#9

Something practical: everything goes through the online system at my practice now and it is far more reliable than the phone ever was.

5

ColNewquay, UK
#10

Picking up Kate’s point rather than starting a new one.

My experience of the system has been slow and correct, which is a frustrating combination and better than fast and wrong.

9

OttiHarrogate, UK
#11

I found the waiting the hardest part and the actual care, once it started, entirely good.

8

IvorLlanelli, UK
#12

Reading Fitz, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

Something worth knowing: my repeat arrangement needed setting up explicitly and did not happen automatically as I had assumed.

9

PerdyShrewsbury, UK
#13

What surprised me was how much better things went once I brought a written summary. Nine minutes is not long and preparation doubles it.

7

HollisBath, UK
#14

Agreed, and I have nothing to add to it.

8

PamSouthport, UK
#15

Something practical: ask for a copy of your referral letter. Mine had an error in it that would have delayed things by months.

9

DelythBala, UK
#16

The pharmacy route and the specialist route are genuinely different here and I did not understand that for a year.

6

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK
#17

If you come back and say how long it actually took where you are, that is the most useful thing anybody in this circle can contribute. Nobody publishes those figures; we only have each other's.

14me too 9

TedIpswich, UK
#18

I went privately for the first year and then transferred across, and the transfer was much smoother than everybody had told me it would be.

7