Waiting for your appointment
Staying well while you wait
Staying well
We understand waiting for your appointment or procedure can be stressful. To help, here are some tips for staying well while you wait:
- Increase your activity levels to improve strength and recovery.
- Quit smoking to reduce chance of complications during surgery and recover quicker.
- Eat a healthy balanced diet to support healing and fight off infection.
- Don’t drink more than the recommended limits .
- Local Talking Therapies services can offer a range of help.
- Learn how to control long-term health conditions such as asthma , diabetes or high blood pressure .
Access your health records
Access your health records
Patients Know Best (PKB) gives you secure access to your health record via an online portal.
Once you are signed up, you’ll be able to see your hospital appointment information. In the future, you will see more of your health record such as test results, scan reports and care plans.
All your data is stored securely. You can opt-out at any time and contact us if you have any questions about using the service.
It’s free for all our patients and easy-to-use. Simply log in to the website from your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Find out about average wait times
Waiting times
Anyone waiting for a hospital appointment, operation or treatment, can now access the NHS My Planned Care platform. This explains the average wait times for each speciality, broken down by NHS trust.
Please look at this website before contacting your GP or hospital clinician for an update about any procedures you are waiting for.
Do you still need your appointment?
Do you still need your appointment?
If you no longer require your appointment or procedure, either because you have received treatment elsewhere or because your situation has improved, please let your clinical team know as soon as possible. You can also find out more about managing your appointment here.
Giving you the choice to be seen elsewhere
Patient Initiated Requests to Move Provider (PIDMAS)
In England NHS patients have the right to request to move to a different hospital to receive their care/treatment if they have been waiting longer than 18 weeks.
As part of the national drive to reduce elective waiting lists, we are initially contacting patients who have been waiting over 40 weeks*, and do not have an appointment date within the next eight weeks, to consider their options to see if they could be seen sooner at a different hospital. (*some clinical exclusions apply).
If you are eligible, you will be contacted directly by text or letter. Please do not contact your GP practice or NHS hospital proactively regarding this offer.
You will be provided with more information regarding the process when you are invited to consider options.
Mutual Aid
To help with waiting lists, we are working together with North East London (NEL) NHS hospitals to offer treatment to every patient who is on a waiting list in the quickest possible way.
One way in which we’re making this happen is by each hospital offering access to their specialist doctors for some services, to patients waiting on any hospital list in NEL. You can find out more by reading the mutual aid leaflet below.