Hospital have rung me 4 times now, leaving no message and I dont know what department

[likelysuspect]

How do I find out who has rung me. No message, no text message. Im under a number of departments or referrals at the moment so I have no clue what it could be about. When you ring the main hospital number it asks of course what department you want to be put through to, I have no idea

Im getting really anxious about it, what do they want?

Nothing on my NHS app.

If they're not going to leave a message, because thats not what they do, then I doubt they're going to listen through to the whole message are they?

If Im not going to leave someone a message I dont sit through the whole voicemail message and only then hang up, I hang up the minute I hear it answered by a voicemail

If it’s important they’ll keep trying or send you a letter. I wouldn’t waste time on this.

I have had this a few times over the last few weeks as I’ve been waiting for scans. Both times it was to offer me a last minute appointment due to a cancellation.

Do you have the NHS App? It shows you all your outstanding referrals and if you are now able to book appointments (as in referral accepted, hospital contacting you) it offers you that option on there.

When I’ve had this I got a letter a couple days later with a new appointment time

If you can’t answer your phone due to work reasons or similar, is there someone you could trust to keep your phone and answer if while you are unavailable?

Shit like this is one of many things I hate about the NHS.

There is very little you can do other than hope they try again. Sorry.

This happened to me.... I had a two missed calls from a random hospital, and was on the verge of ringing round my nearest and dearest to find out who might have been rushed into A&E and be lying in a coma....then they called back a third time and I managed to pick up.

Turns out they wanted to speak to "Mr Smith, about whether he could come an hour earlier for his boil lancing...." In other words, they'd got the wrong number.

But I agree, they should leave details of who called and how to call back, as it causes no end of worry.

What also makes me laugh, coming back to the confidentiality thing, if that is the reason why they wont leave a message, I was in the GP surgery last night and was waiting ages for someone on reception to be free, all the while hearing another receptionist talking loudly to Mrs xxxx (name stated loudly) about her mental health, what tablet this, no you mustnt mix it with this. Clearly the patient was struggling I get that, so the receiptionist was having a difficult phone call and needing to manage it, but dont talk to me about confidentiality when I now know all about Mrs xx and her breakdown and medication etc
Same in the chemist, having to shout your address over the covid screen when you pick up your prescription.

Maybe shout Hospital as the first word. That would surely catch their attention. It really is a crazy system that each department don't have their own numbers to call people on.

The confidentiality thing is utter bollocks. I don't give two shits what any NHS apologist says. I just judge by actions.

The real truth is the harder they make it to contact them, the better their metrics look.

I once met the team that worked out having a 3 minute message before responding the the menu options would treble response rates. They were hived off into a specialist unit that are tasked with what has been dubbed "pre triage triage".