Elderly FIL and blood test

Sorry posted too soon

It's literally a massive room of people holding a ticket, you walk in and give the form, they read it and get the right tubes, take the blood and attach the details from the form
That's it

@Havanananana that's not how it works for any of mine

The GP or consultant types what they want testing and prints a blood form which they hand to me or post depending whether it's out of area or not
I take the blood form to the clinic
The blood clinics don't know I am coming until I turn up and take a ticket or what bloods I need until I hand them the form
I can also take the form to the hospital blood testing bit

There's no referral and no appointment
I can book an appointment on a Saturday but I give them my name and DOB and that's it, they have no other info

@Sidge "the phlebotomist is literally there to take the blood sample. They have no access to referral letters, request forms beyond what the patient had been given. No identifying what the patient is there for or why beyond the request form the patient should bring."

But at some point the GP/Consultant has written a referral letter saying "Please do Test XYZ for Mr Smith"

The phlebotomy dept will have received this referral, so they know that Mr Smith needs Test XYZ - and as they write a detailed letter when informing him of the appointment ("please attend at 10.00 for Test XYZ") there should then be two letters in the department stating the test required (the referral and the appointment letter), so why does the phlebotomist not have this information, and why, if the patient has not brought the letter, can this information not be quickly accessed, either using the patient's name, NI number or NHS number?

The whole system as described is riddled with potential failure points - the patient doesn't know to take the letter, or simply forgets, or drops it in the car park; the phlebotomist has no idea why the patient is there; there is no back-up information that is quickly and easily accessible.... it is crying out to be revised (and as many pp have posted, many places have a much better system in place, right down to the GP (or the GP surgery) being able to take the blood sample, thus cutting out all of these convoluted (and costly) processes.

The worst is the queues at ours
They open at 8am (blood clinic only) and people start queuing from 7am. By 8am, they're full
I've ended up pre booking Saturday ones and going to those as I can't keep taking half a day annual leave and not getting bloods done

I’ve had cancer treatment so you do become familiar with the strange ways of the NHS and what bits of paper you have to have with you for which appointment. I think many in the NHS assume people just know this stuff when they don’t. I’ve had loads of blood tests now but at the beginning I didn’t know about the “take this form or they won’t do the test” thing. Sorry your FIL had a wasted journey. He won’t be the first and won’t be the last.

@Havanananana the phlebotomist is literally there to take the blood sample. They have no access to referral letters, request forms beyond what the patient had been given. No identifying what the patient is there for or why beyond the request form the patient should bring.

Phlebotomy departments potentially see hundreds of patients daily. They just don’t have the capacity for accessing all the relevant request info. And if a patient doesn’t have the form the admin staff are unlikely to have the time or resources to call around surgeries, trying to get the necessary info. Heck, the patient forgot his form, he might not remember who asked for the bloods in the first place. Far better to rebook for when he can return and bring the request form with him

@RosesAndHellebores I did say I was generalising. I made a point of saying things vary between areas.

You're assuming that he actually knew that he had to take the form. From my own experience of attending hospital appointments in the UK it is often far from clear what the patient is supposed to do, or what they should bring with them.

Why is it seemingly such a strange idea to think that the phlebotomist would also have a copy of the referral letter or some sort of check-list (e.g. Mr Smith needs test XYZ) and thus know why the patient is attending and what to prepare in advance?

So yes, the FIL should have had the letter with him - but any system that does not have a back-up option needs to be reviewed and redesigned. For good clinical reasons everything else in the NHS is duplicated and double checked - but sometines simple but essential things get overlooked.

And for clarity, I'm not critical of the individual staff involved - I'm critical of the way that work-flow "systems and processes" have been allowed to develop that are accepted as being the norm in some places (other pp have given examples where there are much better processes) and which are met with defensive responses when challenged.

@Sidge where I live the GP's do request blood tests from hospital phlebotomy departments so perhaps don't generalise. And yes, the administrator wouldn't automatically know who issued the request but presumably the op's FIL did and, you know, they could have asked. Or would that have been too hard for someone who works for the NHS.

Finally, age is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act (2010) and helping this elderly gentleman would have been a reasonable adjustment and a reasonable expectation. We all know how important equality is throughout the NHS and equality is not about treating everyone the same, it's about making adjustments so the person has the same level of access as the next person.

@ExitViaGiftShop your poor FIL. I hope it isn't a serious matter and that this delay will not detrimentally affect his health.

But they don’t know who the requester is if they have no form!

The OP hasn’t said anywhere that is was a GP request actually.

GPs rarely send patients into hospital phlebotomy departments with forms anyway, they’re usually generated by hospital doctors.

GPs tend to do their own bloods “in house”. Hence why the requests are usually on the system for their own staff to take.

Also did you know GPs aren’t core contracted to do secondary care bloods? Requests from hospital are done as a favour to the patient to save them travelling to hospital or under a locally commissioned service, so may vary between areas.

Its not the NHSs fault he didn’t take the form, people need to take responsibility for themselves instead of blaming someone else.

Because it’s a lot more complicated and expensive than you think. Sure it would make sense, but who will pay for it?

most people have no idea how bad IT is in 'the NHS'. What you've described is a bit inconvenient (and not that uncommon). A lot of the IT set-up is not just inconvenient for patients, at the very best it adds significant amounts of time to even the simple jobs, and at the worst it leaves us having to make best guesses and hope we don't stuff up royally because the tech is just not robust enough for the job.

This has happened to me at my GP surgery. I was sent a text asking me to make an appointment to have my bloods done, which l did.
When l got to the appointment the nurse asked why l was there. Showed her the text.
"Well l don't know what they want you tested for. You should have brought a form."
I didn't have a form. All l'd had was a text to make an appointment. I assumed it would be on my records why they wanted my bloods done.

Ditto blood pressure. I get a text saying l need to make an appointment for that.
So when l go, the nurse tells me l can have it done at the pharmacy and l've 'wasted an appointment.'

Except l can't. Because l'm taking blood pressure meds, and the NHS website states very clearly that 'you cannot get a free blood pressure check if you already have high blood pressure.'
Not one person at the surgery has been aware of that. I've even saved a screenshot of it on my phone now because they deny all knowledge.
It's not the medical staff's fault. If they're not told, they won't know. I didn't until l tried to make a pharmacy appointment.

@pippa12 I haven't seen a handwritten request for decades. They are printed out with a bar code. The receptionists at my practice can access my records.

The issuer is the GP!!!

@sidge @NC2025NC OK if not the GP, could they not have called the issuer? Or would that have been too much trouble?

@RosesAndHellebores its generally handwritten and signed… therefore not a ‘email it over job’. It’s a disturb the gp and his patient, then get him to bring up the notes, look which tests are required, re-write the slip, give it back to the receptionist to then somehow get the handwritten request to the hospital… the system is utterly rubbish but it’s certainly not the receptionists fault.

And what are is the cut off we afford this service? If you’re under 50 do you get sent away because you have no slip, but over 50 we ring the GP?

Was it from the GP though? I have blood forms from a hospital out of area which they can't send over or print out

And blood clinic on a Saturday when they can't ring my GP if I forget it
They tell me to bring the form when they book and then ring me the day before to remind me again that they can't do it without
I leave them in the car or my handbag now

We don’t even know it was requested by the GP so hold fire on your favourite pastime of slagging off the NHS and all who work in it…

What a lot of 86 year old patient blaming there has been on this thread. An administrator, who was possibly chatting shit to the administrator sitting next to her, as happens at my local phlebotomy clinic, could have picked up the phone to the GP surgery.

"Hello, I've got John Smith here, dob 1938, aged 86. He's just come all the way on the bus for a blood test but has forgotten his form. Can you please send me a copy of the request form by email, and we'll sort it out for him to save him getting the bus home and back again".

Let's not forget that poor old John Smith probably contributed tax and ni to the system for 40 plus years and may well still be doing so.

I'd have more sympathy for NHS staff if a little common sense and kindness were more often exercised.

Once done the administrators could go back to their chat.

Yes, but population of Sweden is just over 10 million, population of the UK is just under 70 million. Your health spend per capita is also a lot higher than in the UK..
I come from a very small country and we also have everything digitisied. So much so that even our store membership cards are loaded to the national ID card. It would be unthinkable to experience what we experience in the UK, not only with the NHS but any similarly convoluted government department.