I work in NHS admin, AMA

[greywildocean]

Inspired by the manager thread.

i’m a lot lower down than admin. I work at a fairly large hospital.

Hello! Do you get frustrated by the IT systems? I was in hospital recently and there was a big trolley with computer screens on it, the nurses updated lots of information at my bedside, great.

However - the system still thought I live at my old address and had my name wrong, so the nurses and doctors were baffled why I came up as Miss Joanie T when my name is Mrs Joanne W.

It took 4 days to get my plaster cast put on after my operation; I could have left hospital two days earlier and not been stuck with bedpan and blood thinners for so long. Then six weeks later it took me no fewer than 11 calls to find to book taking the plaster cast off, since that was my secondary injury I wasn’t “popping up” in the right place.

And since I was going to see my NhS physio at a different trust, my consultant said he couldn’t email the physio or send my notes other than by post (!) so it would be quicker “and more reliable” if I printed them and took them to the physio myself!

When I got to the physio he did a double take as he had no idea what my injuries were (significant and more complex than just the things he’d been told he had to fix).

So my question is: from your side, how do you stand it? Do you even notice the gross inefficiency or does it seem normal?

The computer systems are awful, in a lot of trusts. My trust is updating and the new system will be brilliant, tying things together.

A lot of patients don’t understand that updating at your GP, for the most part, doesn’t update at your hospital! Which is a bit insane but it’s something we have to live with for now.

I will say though, @MaggieMar, seeing it from a patient perspective now and before, it really annoys me. Lots of inefficiencies that could be easily remedied.

I know - the tools almost work, but not quite and there is so much wasted time.

At one stage, having been given a wrong phone number for my hospital three times (eg an internal-only number; the actual medical team not the booking team; etc), I called the PALS team hoping they’d have a directory - and the lady said “I’ll walk round to them and ask someone for you, hold on.”

Clearly she’d given up on the phone system too!

I work in IT systems and I just don’t understand why Trusts have been permitted and encouraged to build systems in isolation - you’d think the NHS number should enable all the systems to interface seamlessly. Surely the whole point of a national public health service is to benefit from economy of scale!

I really pity you all having to deal with it. I think I’d be screaming in frustration - I know how much money is spent on these systems, big promises, third parties getting rich on software that doesn’t work properly, while front line staff are stuck with the mess and the poor pay. It makes my blood boil. Sorry no question here! Just arrrrgh and sympathy

The issue is, there’s no money there for this sort of thing.

The upgrade at my trust has been in the works for at least 18 years. A poor phone system is seen as the least of our worries because it’s a minor thing compare to to having theatres out of action

Yes it’s odd isn’t it. I have had various experiences now I’m in my 50s I’m more canny. As a younger woman I just assumed things would work in a sensible way. Now I know you basically have to oversee every single tiny step of the process to ensure it happens right.

The funniest one was when my hospital maternity unit didn’t book my induction - at all. I didn’t really want an induction so I called up a few days after they’d originally indicated it should have happened and said “erm, what happened to the induction then?” And admin reply was “what induction? you’re not shown as needing…oh hold on…how strange…yes you should have been induced a week ago! It looks like we missed that. Shall we book it now then?”

Alrighty then 😆 just the small matter of my unborn child’s life.

The errors are so casually dealt with. I’m never surprised when things go wrong - this article about racism in maternity services, I think there’s just a lot of gross errors that perhaps non- British people don’t think to look out for!

I think there’s a lot of disconnect between the patient facing side and the admin side. Consultants don’t know how long their wait lists are so they’re telling people it’ll be 4 weeks when it’s closer to a year! So then the admin staff get it in the neck despite us having no control over it.

Hello from the other thread! What can we do in NHSE to support you? If anything of course.