to expect a first in morning app with a consultant to be less than an hour delayed

[frontallabotomy]

I mean wtf has he been?

With patients on emergency call I expect.

Stuck in traffic? Stuck in the operating theatre?

Did he give you an explanation?

Probably doing a ward round before clinic which overran because of poorly patients

Mine is ALWAYS at least an hour late. Whatever they're doing can't be "unexpected" as it happens with such regularity. I just wish they'd factor it into their appointments system and treat in-patients with a little more respect. My time is very valuable to me, and my employer, too.

When I went to ENT I had the first appointment of the day more than once. I'd be sitting in the waiting room after my appointment time watching the staff arrive. It was so annoying that I'd made sure I was there before my appointment time, the reception staff were too but the clinical staff weren't. When I was eventually called, I would be seen by someone I saw arriving so it wasn't just that they had staggered start times.

The consultant at my [genericplaceofwork] once went to lunch leaving his next appointment waiting . IMO Consultants have god complexes and think the world should wait for them.

YANBU.

We all know about underfunding for NHS, staff cuts etc. But you are a customer. If you had gone to your hairdresser for a 9am haircut and he/she waltzed in at 10am you would probably have left and gone and booked in elsewhere.

Why should it be differentfor a medical appointment.

Grr..... However, I must say that all my recent appointments have been virtually on time so i can't really complain.

I think consultants are probably less powerful than you'd think wrt their schedules.

Last time I was in hospital mine came to see me about the op I was having later that day, at 8am ish before his clinics (I guess). Of course it turned out that he hadn't been shown the scans they had done overnight - so he had to go and chase them - ate up c. 20 min.

I'm sure he had other patients to see too and was probably late for his 9am that day. Not his fault.

Once when Ds was an inpatient his consultant woke me up with a cup of tea in the morning (7ish) and stayed with us for getting on for an hour discussing ds's various issues. I always remember that when she is ridiculously late for his outpatient appointments.

When I had been in labour all night with DS1 and pushing for 2 hours from 5am and exhausted, the consultant who had seen me throughout pregnancy kindly came and pulled baby out ventouse style, even though he wasn't on call and this made him late for his out patient clinic. I was very grateful.

Chasing up your test results
Speaking to a gp about an emergency admission
Ward round delayed to speak to grieving family
Up all night in theatre so showering, changing and having some breakfast before another full day at work

And msrisotto unless the consultant was a robot they clearly need to eat also

remember though too frontal that cons and staff will still have to stay though the day till the clinic finishes later than planned. I was the last patient of the day when my obs / gyne was 1 1/2 hours late because he had to do an emcs ... he and his staff did nowt but apologise and give out complaints slips to everyone kept waiting in case anyone wanted to make a complaint , no one did !

surely you are not serious supernanny about hospital consultants being the same as a hairdresser . depending on the department consutants have to drop everthing and attned emergencies ( maybe not in dermatology I grant you ....but obstetrics / medicine / surgery / orthopaedics etc !!)

I wouldn't wait an hour for my hair to be cut because the reasons for my hairdresser being late are things like
Her child being sick
The road being clogged
Her previous client being late

But I would be able to rebook

I would wait an hour for a Drs appointment for all the reasons given above, but I would be annoyed if it was just because they fancied grabbing a latte haf way through their morning

My DH has absolutely no control over the booking of his clinics. His day does not start when the clinic does either, he has to go to his ward, outliers and often a&e. He hates being late and clinics are often overbooked, but sick patients have to be prioritised.

He has no god like powers over the system that's for sure.

When pg with DC1 my antenatal clinic regularly began up to 2 hours late. Apparently the consultant was taking the students on ward rounds - so that makes it fine to keep 30 women/men/children/assorted grandparents and friends/midwives and nurses hanging around like a bunch. I wish someone had told my work that my being pregnant meant that I had all the time in the world to sit around waiting.

By the time I was pg with DC2 (4years later) someone had pulled their finger out and the clinic was running more or less on time. Just shows what decent management can do.

Please do complain about this. Patient complaints are the only thing that managers will listen to!

Our clinics run late because we are trying to see all the patients that need to be seen. Managers think we can do this in 10 min slots each. That's fine if it is nice and simple, but if it was nice and simple, you wouldn't be seeing us.

supernanny, I'd love to see a consultant "waltz" in at 10am, because all the ones I know start at 7-8am to try to deal with the mountain of paperwork, see how their patients did overnight, sort out questions from GPs/nurses/out patients!

perhaps he had been on the school run.
his own medical appointment.
overslept. double booked?
who the F knows.

Ward rounds probably.

Also, my first patient is at 9am. I arrive at around 8am to deal with my paperwork, emails etc.

The first patient arrives at 9am (usually, not always) and then needs to be seen by nurses for urine/blood pressure check etc. Sometimes their notes have been lost so someone needs to find them. I don't often see my 9am patient until 9.15am because of this.

Sometimes patients arrive late. I give them half an hour and then they need to rebook, but if they arrive before then, I need to (according to hospital policy) see them, making the rest of my clinic run late.

YABU.

Every single consultant appt I have ever had has been really late - I imagine there is a good reason for it not because they are 'waltzing' around.

Sometimes poorly organised clinic with 3 or 4 patients booked into the 9am slot!

Just because there are valid reasons for lateness, it doesn't mean you aren't allowed to be annoyed about it. I'm kept waiting at least an hour and usually more for my ongoing appointments every time I go to the clinic, and it's not the wait that gets me down so much as not being informed that there's a delay. I've ended up going for appointments in the morning, and ending up in agony because I haven't been able to take my medication, because I thought that any minute now, I might get seen. (I need to take my meds with food). It's not unreasonable to hope that you might get home from a 9.30am appointment around lunchtime, I think.
I know all the reasons are perfectly reasonable, but when you're feeling like crap yourself, it's very hard to be told by the nurse that the doctor is "with a poorly patient". We're all poorly, and I don't like being told that to make me sound like a malingerer, when I ask how much longer I'll have to wait.

They say that to everyone columbia when I was waiting for an op after breaking both legs, a doctor said ' The surgeons are with people who are really ill.'

I do agree about keeping you informed - that would help a lot.