28/02/20

The chain of command - I'm just a little confused. We have:

Dr.Kumar, my GP (I started the two-letter thing e.g. Dr.Ku for a little anonymity, but I'm fed up with it now and am going to abandon it)

Dr.Chowdhury, my Haematology/Oncology consultant at Springfield - he's the one who has basically organised everything

Professor Jamie Cavenagh at The London Clinic

Professor John Gribben at London Haematology (part of The London Clinic, as I understand it).

Who's top man of this lot? Who's in charge? Prof.Gribben is acting as if I've been Prof.Cavenagh's patient all along, leaving Dr.Chowdhury out of it altogether (I've seen copies of his letters to Cavenagh and Kumar)

More practically, I've had prescriptions of chemo drugs and some "supportive" ones from Chowdhury and the Springfield pharmacy while others come from Kumar - and a lack of coordination between the two of them means I have a stock of Omeprazole PPI that should last me for several months to come...  My GCSF injections came from Gribben, although in a phone call Chowdhury clearly expected that he was going to have to organise them. He seemed a tiny bit put out when I told him I already had them in my fridge.
Obviously while I'm in hospital things will have to come from the hospital pharmacy and therefore either Gribben or Cavenagh will have to prescribe them. But what happens when I'm back at home? Who's in charge then? I know that for a month or two there will be regular trips back to London for monitoring but that won't necessarily cover everything. It's all rather confused and has a huge potential for time-wasting and over-prescribing of expensive medications. Or worse, if the different people want to push my treatment in different directions. Hard to believe that monthly Multi-Disciplinary Team meetings between Chelmsford and London will be enough to coordinate everything smoothly.

Time will tell, I suppose.