Now Ive had a look through the forums and I can see lots of discussions about patches being released for all platforms but these only appear to refer to the US. Can someone tell me when we are to expect the initial patch in the UK please??

The one and only currently existing (at the time of this writing) patch for consoles was released in Europe first.
I'm on the PS3 and there has only been the one patch released so far.

As for the PC ... I'm sorry but I have no idea.