How angry with my Dr surgery should I be?

[ApolloandDaphne]

I made an appointment with my GP last Tuesday for tomorrow. It's a follow up after I had an x ray as they requested I go back in to talk over the results.

Today my DH for a notification to his phone telling him he has an appointment tomorrow. It's my appointment (same time and GP). I
am cross because i will need to go in earlier than my time to sort it out but i'm really cross because I believe this breaches confidentiality/GDPR. DH knew about the appointment but I might have had reason to keep it from him.

How angry should I be about this?

That's not correct. They were looking in my records when I made the appointment as they had to see what the x rays results said. The rol me that the x ray had been reviewed and on that basis they have asked to see me back at the surgery. I'm assuming it shows something that needs followed up. They weren't in his records at all.

Life is too short to be angry about this. Just go in and explain so your GP knows you are there. No fuss, no drama.

If your dh got the text message, could it be something as simple as his phone number is recorded as the default number on your record?

I believe you - this happened to us at our dr's surgery; I got a notification of DHs appt.
I do work in a medical setting and I felt like you, not exactly angry but shocked because it's an absolute no no and shouldn't have happened

Our surgery never actually got to the bottom of it, DHs number was correct on his record and they couldn't see any reason why it would come to mine, and it happened a couple more times too but seems to have fizzled out now

YABVU. That’s mildly irritating at best. No need to be angry. I’ve made mistakes at work, everyone has.

+You don’t know what the Team might have been dealing with that day or the person inputting the info.

As a retired SW not sweating the small stuff should be a given. Surmising ‘what if’ scenarios to make the ‘crime’ in theory more serious also doesn’t help.

Mention it to them when you go in and move on.

Absolutely not. I will soon find out if the appointment has been made for him or me as we have to log in when we arrive using our surname and DOB.

Then stay cross and do not upgrade to entry level angry.

Whoever you speak to won’t be the person who made the mistake, if it was a human mistake, so they’ll just have to cope with you, as they have to cope with every other patient’s emotions.

If it was a computer error, then they have to battle with the system themselves.

My friend worked as a GP receptionist and they were only allowed to work part time because of the stress.

Use all those SW people skills to focus on the outcome you want, which is information and a correction, rather than being difficult, which is how you’ll come across if you’re not careful.

I used to get emails about hospital appointments for my adult son because somehow my email address had stayed on his record from when he was a child. This actually was a GDPR matter as I was getting confidential information about which clinic he was attending. At the time it was for a broken leg so nothing that I didn’t already know about, but he could have been having treatment for something he wanted kept private.

The GPs said that their records were correct and it was the hospital’s error, and the hospital said the GPs were wrong, so nobody seemed to be able to get anything corrected. I ended up having to make an official written complaint and it was found to be a bug in the software.

I've actually looked at the message sent and it has my DHs full name on it so it's definitely been made for him and not for me.

Great. So you can calm the flip down now.

Why? It's not in my name at all.

I see why you are puzzled. I’m in Scotland too so no NHS app. I would just make sure they had your contact details correctly when you go in. It doesn’t seem much but it is a breach of confidentiality and could be dangerous for some women if there was DV or similar.

As in it's not been made for me and sent to him in error. The appointment has been made for him but they were in my files when I called as they read from my notes.

This 💯!

I'm in Scotland and can confirm there is an app as I've seen GP and hospital letters and appointments via it.

So the GP got mixed up with your appointment and sent a message regarding your apt to your partner, as if it was his?
Yeah, it's sloppy. He shouldn't have got that text and it would annoy me too. Your medical stuff is yours and yours only.
Good luck with the results, hope all goes well.

I mean the message might not mention Op, but if her husband has been sent a reminder for an appointment that he knows he hasn't made, is it more likely that it's her appointment or another patient's appointment being referenced?

I'm guessing that somewhere in the process of making the appointment or authorising the text confirmation someone has made an error and selected the wrong name. Or there's an error in their system that selected the first name at your address. So go in 5 minutes early and let them know. It's not really a data breach because your DH wouldn't know the appointment was for you.

I have the patient Access app but I can only order repeat prescriptions on it. I wish we had access to more.

It must go by healthboards then because I can view appointments and change where necessary

I've been for my appointment. The receptionist was baffled by what had happened and is going to pass it on as a concern. We had a pleasant and jovial conversation about it.

Same happened to my Mum but they phoned and told her she was in the early stages of kidney failure when it was actually my stepdad!

I work in admin at a GP surgery and can tell you this is not their fault. It happens all the time. You will have added your mobile number as primary contact and that’s what is called first and you’ve added his number as a mobile contact which receives text messages as system default. You need to remove his mobile number from that and ask it be added as to emergency contact only. Simple.

He is only on as an emergency contact. I had alerts to ask me to call the surgery for my results to my own number,

It’s just either a human error or a system error. Just call them and sort it out.isn’t that better than sitting around steaming and angry?