Just had a phone call from the hospital. All surgeries including possible cancer biopsies have been cancelled due to CoVid for the foreseeable future. They have suggested I try private route as well but they are not sure if they will be booking appointments now as last time when they stopped all operations, NHS & Private combined care.  Just feel sick

Hi Tracey

thats awful news! It's not like it's a routine operation you were referred urgently. That's so frustrating! I would definitely go down the private route. In the first lockdown I went private for a suspicious lesion on my lip. I was referred to a dermatologist that also did plastics and he saw me for a zoom call first of all then asked me to go in to have it looked at in the private hospital. He didn't know if it was cancerous or not so he scheduled me in the following week to have it removed following a Covid test. All routine private appointments were cancelled but urgent procedures were still going ahead and I had my op in June in the private hospital during the toughest restrictions. 
if you have private healthcare I would definitely try and use it. X

Thanks. I have a list of calls to make tomorrow with AXA PPP being top of the list!

I also need to get hold of the referral letter from Dermatologist to Plastics somehow to skip that part of the process. The hospital have it but won't email to me because of GDPR! They will post tomorrow but our post is taking ages at the moment. There seems to be an obstacle every way I turn!

GP might have a copy but I've looked at my online account & nothing on there at the moment so that's another call tomorrow.

Your GP may have a copy and might emaiL it to you or let you collect a copy. Mine has done before.  The phoning around is not ideal we did it last week but hopefully they will get you seen soon. I've just had a google and it looks like some nhs patients paid privately to have urgent procedures done that were left by the nhs during the height of the first wave of Covid. A terrible situation but good that you have private healthcare and proof that private ops took place last time despite nhs cancelling them. 
good luck. I hope you get seen really soon 

Thank you. Yes very lucky to have PMI to fall back on. Just wish I had done it on 10 December when I was first referred instead of trusting in the 14 day pathway x

Hi Lisa

its been a stressful few days but I had my private consultation this morning and she did the biopsy there and then. I'm so relieved to have had it done.

I’ve got to keep it elevated for 5 days and go back next week for wound check and the following week for results. Initially she said it looked very suspicious but when she had the nail off most of the discolouration was on nail and only a little bit on skin so she is not so sure now. If it is suspicious, its not gone very deep so that’s a big positive x

Fantastic news Tracey! So pleased you got a biopsy straight away. Was it the dermatologist that did the biopsy? Or plastics? 
please keep me posted. Any idea how long you have to wait? It sounds reassuring from what you've said. 
 

my husband was due for his nhs appointment tomorrow but has cancelled it as he's being reviewed privately in 3 months. We've been monitoring the nail and it's not got any worse / bigger / darker. Still early days to see if it's growing out or not though. 
we contemplated being seen on the nhs still but it was the same clinic the private dermatologist works at so figured they would all have the same kind of ethos and thoughts over it and to monitor for now. Fingers crossed it all works out ok. 
 

lisa 

Hi Lisa

The biopsy was done by a plastic surgeon but she is also a skin cancer specialist based in London.

She is hopeful that I should have results on the 21st.

I think you are right with your husband not to attend the nhs appointment. If he does need a biopsy in the future, I would go for private as you have PMI as the results seem much quicker. The NHS plastic surgeon I saw said 4 weeks for results. 
I had mine over 8 weeks and she said she would have expected it to have start growing out by now which it hasn't. Hopefully you will see your husbands start to grow out soon.

Tracey x

Results due tomorrow ~ feeling nervous!