Playing the Waiting Game

You may have been thinking, 'it's all very well making us aware of Deafness and its issues but I wanted to know more about the Hearing Dog application process that you're going through'. Well fear not, things have been happening just very very verrryyyyy sloooooooooowly....

Until last week the situation left me playing a very frustrating waiting game. Hearing Dogs sent me a couple of questionnaires in early May that needed to be filled in to assist them in the matching/application process. One form to be sent to my GP (that was the easy part) and another to my Audiologist (this was less clear-cut).



Until 2008 I had remained with the RTNEH in London as an out-patient and had been very happy with their standards of care and professionalism. I changed to Addenbrookes as they had a good reputation and, more practically, were easier to reach now I wasn't working in London so often.
I had attempted previously to get my patient records transferred from RTNEH to Addenbrookes so that Addenbrookes would have a complete record of my history rather than the snapshot that they had. This was more important now I needed a clear and comprehensive answer to the questions in the Hearing Dogs questionnaire for my Audiologist.

I contacted RTNEH to find out who I needed to contact to get my records transferred and was quickly pointed in the direction of the Records department. After several emails without a reply I started to get a little frustrated.

Addenbrookes Hospital

I visited the Hospital (Addenbrookes) a couple of weeks ago to get the misbehaving Hearing Aid fixed after the previous drama. While I was there I discovered that the records team at whatever Hospital you want to transfer your records from are next to powerless when it comes to this kind of thing... Apparently rather than contacting them, which is what I did in order to get my records transferred, I needed to address my request to the Medico-Legal team.

So after repeated emails and not a single reply from the Records Team at RTNEH I know now who to contact... Shame they couldn't have had the decency to point me in the right direction...

Having found this out, and suspecting that the process would take a while, I sent the questionnaire to the Addenbrookes Audiology team, in the end, with a covering letter suggesting they could contact me if they needed further information.

Fast forward to the week before last I received an Email from my Hearing Dogs Advisor 'Freda' asking if I would be able to attend an Information Day at the Princes Risborough Training Centre? Would I? Silly question, of course I would! Needless to say I asked if they'd received the filled in questionnaires from the GP and Audiology to which they replied that they had... Phew!

Anyway, tomorrow I shall be trekking down to the Chilterns for an Information Day and introductions. More on that next time.