Waiting for your appointment

We will try to book an appointment that works for you whenever we can, but this is not always possible.

Our clinics take place across different hospital sites. This means you may be booked somewhere other than Southampton General Hospital to try to reduce the time you are waiting for your appointment, and to give you more choice.

How do we book your appointment?

University Hospital Southampton (UHS) has started a new way of booking appointments to help us see you at the right time, in the right place, and as soon as possible. Our aim is to reduce waiting times and the number of times we rebook your appointment.

Now, when we get a referral, we book you into the next appointment slot, even if this is many months in the future. This often means we rebook this many times to bring the appointment closer. With this new booking system, you will be added to a waiting list in order of clinical urgency and referral date. We will then make the appointments about six weeks in advance, working down the waiting list to book them.

As part of changing to this new way of booking, our booking teams will be cancelling appointments and moving patients into a waiting list. You will get a letter if this has happened to you. If you do get one of these letters, please don't be worried, you will still be seen. Some services will not use this new way of booking because they are already booking patients within this timeframe.

You can find out more about the changes to the appointment booking process here.

When you are referred to us, your treatment should start within 18 weeks, unless you choose to wait longer, or it is clinically in your best interests to wait. This will be discussed and decided at your appointment with your involvement.

Shared decision making (SDM) is making sure that you are part of the conversation with the healthcare professional at your appointment and that you know the positives and negatives of any treatment options given to you. Decisions should be based on what matters to you, your beliefs, worries, and hopes.

If you choose to delay your appointment or treatment, or cancel several times, this will affect how long you wait to be treated. Your doctor may also decide to discharge you back to your GP.

If you're waiting to hear from us about an appointment and are worried that your appointment letter may be lost in the post, please contact the outpatient administration centre (OAC) or login to your NHS app to check if an appointment is there.

How do I ask for my appointment to be sooner?

If you feel your symptoms have got worse while you are waiting, then please speak to your GP. They can decide if they should speak to the hospital to ask for your appointment to be brought forward to an earlier time. Appointments cannot be brought forward just based on the time you have been waiting.

While you are waiting for an appointment, there is information that can help you on our waiting well pages.

Checking your hospital waiting time

You can use the NHS app to check that you are on a waiting list, look at your estimated waiting time, and find out who to contact if you have any issues. Find out more and download the NHS app here

For information about waiting times please visit the guide to NHS waiting times on the NHS website.