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Waiting list blues - still / Therapist recommendation closer than London - still looking.


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Hi everyone,

A whole year has passed since my CADAT assessment and I'm still waiting for the recommended treatment to begin.  It's torture.  The "referral to treatment clock" (since my GP referred me there) has been going 1 year and 2 months, and the total waiting time since I went back to my GP for help has now been a year and a half. First I was on the ADRU waiting list, but after 8 months they still couldn't tell me how much longer it would be and I asked to transfer to Bath.  Who can't tell me how long it will be.   I've tried 6 different antidepressants and 2 lots of CBT (1 NHS, 1 Mind), both bad, plus 20 sessions with an NHS clinical psychologist, occupational therapy, counselling etc.  It's hopeless when they can't give patients on the waiting list an indication of when they might get the specialist help they need.  I've tried communicating this but it doesn't make any difference.

Anyone who's been to ADRU or had treatment from one of the other specialist services - how long did you have to wait? Thanks

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I was referred to CADAT on 01/07/16 and assessed on 26/08/16.  The decision was made to refer me to ADRU - officially done on 20/09/16.  I hoped I might get admitted there by the New Year.  However, there was a slim chance of a cancellation, so I begged ADRU, CADAT, my GP, my CCG, my CMHT to liaise with each other to put the funding request in as soon as possible,  to coincide with the CCG's funding meeting.

The result was a complex mess of inaccurate / inconsistent information.  I travelled all the way to ADRU on 3/10/16, and the main thing I wanted to know was whether they had got the funding application in, but no-one there could tell me. 

My CCG agreed to fund the treatment in principle in October 2016, but unbelievably failed to communicate this to me, my GP or SLAM to let us know this.   When I called the CCG to ask them if they'd received my funding application in time for their October 2016 funding meeting, they said no - which I discovered 6 months later was not true.  The CCG funding protocol said that as part of the funding application, the referrer had to evidence that alternative providers had been considered.  At that stage the referral was in the hands of the team leader of my CMHT - which had previously refused to accept my referral because they had changed their criteria. She refused to do what the protocol asked (to compare alternatives).  I asked my CADAT assessor if he had considered any alternatives to SLAM and he said that he hadn't. 

I checked I definitely had my place on the waiting list for ADRU, and spent November - March contacting the other providers to see how their services compared, and I also looked at moving house for treatment.  It was a massive task because the services take weeks / months to return your calls / emails.  Due to the difficulty I was having, I spoke to the lady at the CCG in the winter and asked her how they know what the alternative treatment options are.  She said that they Google it.  Once more she failed to mention that they had agreed to fund my ADRU placement in principle, so I was in the dark about that and had to carry the agonising stress of not knowing whether or not my treatment was going to be funded.

By the spring I contacted ADRU again, asking where I was on the waiting list, but they said it was impossible to say.  By this time I had compared all the providers as well as I could, and shared my research with my care co-ordinator.  I felt that Bath would be much more suitable for me than ADRU and he agreed, so he completed the funding appendix and sent it to the CCG.  The CCG then took 5 weeks to send the their decision to Bristol, who could then send it to Bath. I've asked Bath to accept the referral "with RTT clock still ticking" so that I can transfer the time I have spent waiting at ADRU instead of going to the back of their waiting list.  Formally, my clock has been ticking for almost 1 year and 2 months but in actual fact I've been waiting a year and a half due to my local services' original botch up.

I am exasperated and just want to know when I will be able to get the treatment I need, but Bath can't say because they don't know how long each patient will take.

Edited by seekingERPnorthwest
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