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

[frontallabotomy]

I mean wtf has he been?

Just try being five minutes late though, and see how you get told off!

I think the problem lies in the fact that the appointment booking is done by someone non-medical. DH quite often complains that he has 5 hours worth of clinic time or operating time to fit in to 3 hours. He regularly does a full day without a chance for coffee or lunch.

My consultant is late regardless of time of day. Spoke to my friend who is a nurse in the private hospital the consultant does one day a week at, and she said most surgeons would take 90 minutes for a procedure, she can take 5. Once my app was 8.30pm got seen at 9.45pm and was there for 45 mins. Last time she was 40 minutes late and I was due to see her at 9.30am. I'm dreading my next app which is 10.50am.

I once made my doctor late for the rest of her appointments. By about an hour.

I popped in to ask about pain in my gallbladder, threw up and collapsed. She spent the next hour with me administering pain killers until I was stable enough to travel in the ambulance.

I now have no judgement about how late my GP's are running!

When I was being prepped for an emcs at 8.10am my dh unfortunately ended up being sat next to the dh of the first booked in at 8.30am planned sections.
He quite sensibly kept his mouth shut whilst thus man ranted about his partner being kept waiting by his wife and premature twins.
After this I have never wondered why anyone in the NHS is running late.
Cos shit happens.

Frontallobotomy - sorry this happened to you. I think the fault is with people not being honest and keeping you informed as to why the consultant was late. I've found in my profession (which can be equally as late running at times) a cup of tea, apology and explanation can go a long way to helping bad situations like this.

IME it could be the ward round ran over if there was a complex case or two on the wards. Also, emergency phone calls may have to be made as soon as the consutant arrives. The consultant may be in the operating theatre if they were on call.

All of these things are easily possible. And unavoidable. But it's not good enough to keep you in the dark, I feel.

Your hairdresser is unlikely to cut your hair two hours late because your car broke down, or see you on the hop the next day because you went to the wrong hair salon the day before and have just turned up at the right place twenty four hours later.

But I agree with the OP, late is late and is annoying, whatever the reason. If the first appointment is over an hour late you are on heartsink highway.

I wonder if people complained when the paediatrician who was trying to perform a lumbar puncture on my seven week old DS2 a few years ago was late for his appoiuntment. How inconsiderate for a baby needing a diagnosis or otherwise of meningitis to do so at eight thirty in the morning!

DS2 and DS3's paed is usually 90 mins behind with her clinic. However she never minds if you phone the day after an appointment with a question you'd forgotton to ask. She never rushes you at appointments and she often has several pagers attatched to her. She never waltzes into clinic, she runs in, apologizing for her lateness as she goes. Before DS2 was born I used to moan about late appointments but now I know more about how the system works I just accept it but come prepared with a book for me and stuff for the DC's to do unless it's paeds outpatients because they have loads of toys there.

There are a multitude of reasons and not many of them include the surgeon simply deciding to waltz in late.

Most are organisational, many are due to clinical emergencies. I don't work in an outpatient based specialty but I can clearly give you examples where patients have been kept waiting with good reason.

Eg. One of the surgeons I regularly work with has a morning clinic in which the managers insist a 12:30pm patient is booked. She then has an operating list (with around 7 patients on it) which is meant to start at 1:30pm. It doesn't take a genius that she can't do a 20minute clinic appointment, eat lunch and see & consent 7 pre-op patients (specialty which is junior doctor light so nobody to delegate to) within the time allowed.

Clinical Emergencies I was recently involved in a very significantly unwell patient - we had cardiac surgeons hauled out of clinic, a cardiologist, numerous radiologists and 3 consultant anaesthetists. Other patients did with elective procedures did get cancelled but if it was your loved one who was so very sick you would want them to get the treatment they needed. We cannot separate the elective and emergency part of the workload in NHS hospital.

The private sector largely do as they rarely admit people in an unplanned manner eg. if you rupture your abdominal aneurysm (85% of people die) you don't go to the private hospital to bugger up the vascular surgeons list you come to the NHS and it causes merry mayhem. It is also not financially viable to have large teams of people sitting around 'just in case' although I will concede that some hospitals need to review their emergency theatre slot provision to make room for urgent non emergency cases who end up in the dreaded fast- cancel cycle.

I try not to get het up when the consultant is late because it is often caused by an emergency cropping up, or a patient being more complicated than the time slot allows for. Last time I would have been the cause of my consultant being delayed as there simply weren't the apps available so he squeezed me into a non existent slot.
I'd much rather be treated by a consultant who looks after the patients well than one who is more worried about timekeeping.