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I got a note from my doctor this morning with a copy of a letter attached. The letter is from the "Assistant Director Of Corporate Development" for the local care trust.
I feel slightly uneasy and mildly insulted by it, but I can't place why.
I understand from Dr.XXXXXX that you feel that you are not getting the service you require for your patients. As atPCT we have been central in instigating a working party that raised this issue across West Yorkshire. This has led to an agreement that there will be an increase in the service at Leeds and this will be implemented in the next few months. This should quickly have a beneficial effect on the wait for this service. However, for the reasons shown below we are not able to offer a service where there is no wait.
We have increased the level of the service at Leeds to ensure patients are in a position to be offered surgery when it is available. Unfortunately we have not been able to increase the number of operations that are available as one ‘end point’ to the gender identity service. The reason for this is that, as I am sure you are aware, these are carried out by highly skilled and specialised surgeons and there are very few sessions available either within the NHS or privately.
Throughout this process the feeling has been that it was ethically unfair to dramatically increase the service at Leeds when there would be no end point for patients that needed surgery. Keeping people waiting for a long time for surgery when they are taking large amounts of drugs was considered inappropriate. We believe that the new service will mean that we will make best use of the surgical capacity available at the same time as providing a much quicker service for patients who do not wish to proceed to surgery.
Yours sincerely
So, there it is. At least my doctor is doing his best to help me. Just for the record, this is the first real response from anyone in the 2 years I've been trying to get an appointment.
I got a note from my doctor this morning with a copy of a letter attached. The letter is from the "Assistant Director Of Corporate Development" for the local care trust.
I feel slightly uneasy and mildly insulted by it, but I can't place why.
I understand from Dr.XXXXXX that you feel that you are not getting the service you require for your patients. As atPCT we have been central in instigating a working party that raised this issue across West Yorkshire. This has led to an agreement that there will be an increase in the service at Leeds and this will be implemented in the next few months. This should quickly have a beneficial effect on the wait for this service. However, for the reasons shown below we are not able to offer a service where there is no wait.
We have increased the level of the service at Leeds to ensure patients are in a position to be offered surgery when it is available. Unfortunately we have not been able to increase the number of operations that are available as one ‘end point’ to the gender identity service. The reason for this is that, as I am sure you are aware, these are carried out by highly skilled and specialised surgeons and there are very few sessions available either within the NHS or privately.
Throughout this process the feeling has been that it was ethically unfair to dramatically increase the service at Leeds when there would be no end point for patients that needed surgery. Keeping people waiting for a long time for surgery when they are taking large amounts of drugs was considered inappropriate. We believe that the new service will mean that we will make best use of the surgical capacity available at the same time as providing a much quicker service for patients who do not wish to proceed to surgery.
Yours sincerely
So, there it is. At least my doctor is doing his best to help me. Just for the record, this is the first real response from anyone in the 2 years I've been trying to get an appointment.
