A lesion was found on my boyfriend's (22 years old) vocal cord in February and he was told he would be referred for surgery on his throat (microlaryngoscopy and biopsy), however due to COVID he tells me he has been placed on a long waiting list and has still not recieved any follow up appointments despite the lesion and clear damage to his voice. This is so scary, how can we speed the process along? Who would be best to contact? I wonder if private treatment would allow him to get seen quicker, and where I could look for rates (though we are students and low on cash)? I can tell he finds the whole situation very scary and out of his control due to the delays and so he pretends it isn't happening, or makes jokes to avoid adressing it. I would really appreciate some advice on how to get his surgery booked quickly (what to advise him to say to the GP etc), and how to encourge him to tackle the sitation head on. 

I may be overly anxious as a few years ago my father had cancer which resulted on surgical removal of his eye, and so I really want to encourage my boyfriend to take this seriously, but understand that on some level he is too scared to recieve a bad outcome and respect that. Any advice at all would be so appreciated.