What's the best time of day for a hospital appointment?

[franch]

DH is a hospital doctor specialising in children and wants to try and make things more parent-friendly where he works.

When is the best time for a hospital appointment? Normally am or pm means 9-12 or 1.30-4. What about 4-7pm? What about 8-9 am? And what about Saturday mornings?

[misdee]

saturday morning appointments would be great!!

evenings measn interferring with dinner/bed routines. mornings are way too hectic.

[Jimjams]

Saturday morning for us please. Might be hard for single parents with other kids though as they'd have to take them along as well.

[Posey]

Maybe just giving individuals a bit more choice. Some people would prefer an early appointment (maybe before nap time) while others may prefer one later when they've dropped other kids at school.
To be asked what would be your preferred time would be most helpful. And I know easier said than done, but less late running clinics. Nothing worse than breaking your neck to get to an appointment on time only to have to wait an hour or more.

[Thomcat]

Saturdays are fab.
But mornings at any day would be good as well.
Firstly so that parents who work outside home can just take a couple of hours off and go in late and seconly as child hasn't had a chance to get tired out so isn't grumpy, would hopefully just have had a good nights sleep and breakfast and has rest of day to be free of being prodded and poked and observed etc. So anytime between 8am and 12midday would be best, but earlier is better, approaching lunch time kids might be tetchy.

[franch]

This is very helpful - thanks. Any more views very welcome.

[Blu]

First thing in the morning for me. DS has loads of appts, and stopping work in the middle of the day, collecting him from nursery, then taking him back is disruptive for him and costs me and dp loads of work time. Also, IME the waiting delay gets longer and longer as the day wears on. It drives me mad when I take time off work and spend an hour in the waiting room and 10 mins in the appt.
He's going to miss about a day and a half a month of school at this rate, too.

[Marina]

Definitely from 8am to 9am then Saturday mornings. Top ideas there Franch. Wish that point of view could be extended to things like Community Audiology who seem to only see children in the middle few hours of the day. Lovely people, hugely experiences, have to take a day's leave for every appointment by the time I have faffed around on off-peak trains etc.

[debs26]

would he consider book on the day appts? my gp used to have mainly these and it was so much easier than booking 4/6/8 weeks ahead. i know he isnt a gp but he could reserve 2 or 3 a day and if someone had to cancel one it would make it easy to get another

[Easy]

Those of us with school age children would appreciate appts after 4 p.m. so we could go after school.

My ds has missed half a day schooling 3 times, to go for audiology appts that only lasted 10 mins, once we got in to see the Dr.

I have asked for late appointments, but been told that the clinic only books appts up to 3:30 (although the receptionist did say that normally clinic runs sooooo late that if I had the last appt, and didn't arrive until 4:00 it probably wouldn't be a problem)

I wanted to talk to ds's consultant, and had arranged an appointment with his secretary to see him before clinic yesterday at 8:40 a.m. I bust a gut to get there, but he didn't see me (definately his first appt of the day)until 9:15, when I reckon he should have been into his second clinic patient. His secretary said she had rung to remind him of my early appt at 7:30 that morning.

I don't mind clinics running late if it's because the doctor spends extra time talking to each patient, but if they start late because the Dr. can't turn up on time then that is just rude.

[franch]

Easy I agree that it's rude if the dr doesn't turn up on time for no reason - often it's because an emergency case has come up but in that case it would be nice if they explained, wouldn't it?

Am passing all your comments on to DH - hopefully they will lead to some changes!

[Potty1]

Franch - does his hospital take children from a wide area? We go to Birmingham which is a 50 mile trip - in the rush hour it can mean a one and a half to two hour journey so for us a mid-day appointment time is great.

What would be good is that when you get a return appointment, say that you need to be seen again in 3 months that you could book it specifically there and then, like you might do for your next dentist appointment. Possibly I'm asking a but much here?

[SoupDragon]

Any time as long as you get seen at that time!

Being offered a choice of available time slots would be good - I'd prefer early morning simply becaue there has been no time for delays to build up but others prefer different times.

[franch]

All useful thoughts. Potty1 yes, his hosp takes kids from all over - so a good point.

[franch]

bump

[franch]

final bump