to think one NHS fuck up is ok but two is pretty crap

[OrlandoWoolf]

Long story short. I was in the care of a clinic. I was referred to another clinic. I changed address and informed both clinics.

Both clinics were happily sending me letters to my new address. Then the new clinic sent out some very personal stuff about my diagnosis etc to my old address.

I was on MN and was advised who to complain to. It was investigated and was found to be a system error. It happens.

Now the original clinic has sent out a letter to my old address with all personal details on.

How fucking hard can it be? The same mistake made by two separate trusts.

I am going to have to complain again.

I agree completely. I'm equally livid for a similar cock up. I got letters to my new address and then out of the blue they went to my old address and I missed an appointment (redirection failure AS WELL)

It's pretty crap but you have to think of all the wonderful things that the NHS do. I think they're amazing in general. I can forgive the odd admin error. Try living in the States where you have to pay enormous amounts just to even visit a doctor, and you need health insurance

I think if you have time to complain about this,you have too much time on your hands

Yes, complain again. How horrible.

The system is too big for its own good.
Hospitals' IT systems cannot cope with the changes and increase in volume in information etc (and are not the same as what is used in Primary Care so hospital and GP computers are not linked).
Admin is totally divorced from the clinical side of things.

It's a shambles.
Sorry you were affected. Twice. Good grief.

And my DSs' school also keeps sending letters to my old address even though I've told like 5 times to send them to the new one. In fact they didn't even go to school there when we lived at the old address but I was on their mailing lists and not one fucking admin person has the decency to so anything about it

We pay huge amounts here, havingastress, just indirectly.

havingastress

The letter had my life history, medical and psychiatric history on there. Very personal and confidential stuff.

I can cope with one admin fuck up. But for the same mistake to happen twice.

Oh I luffs the NHS, I do - I have had excellent care myself and I work for it.

And yes, I think we'll all miss it terribly if/when it's gone - I shudder to think what might happen to vulnerable people if we ever ended up like the US.

But that does not mean that blunders like these are 'allowed' or 'just one of those things' IMO.

YANBU. The NHS's refusal to use even simple IT means that this sort of thing happens all the time. They still insist that email is not secure but are happy to use the Royal Mail which is under threat of sanctions due to not meeting basic targets like delivering mail on time. Or at all.

I kind of had this impression there was a database for the trust. So if you altered your records, the database would change.

I bet it was taken off my folder. It's a big folder.

I used to do blood tests and checking stuff like name etc was important.

Yes OP, I work in NHS admin and I would bet all the money in my pocket that this was done because your address was manually typed by somebody using the address labels in your notes NOT merged from the electronic system. Mistakes happen and they shouldn't do. Complain. You will get an apology and an explanation and somewhere, somebody will get their arse kicked to remember they are dealing with patient info and be a bit more bloody careful.

That's what happened last time.

I got a phone call from the Governance team. An investigation and the address was copied from a file. The person thinks they may have been distracted when typing so new procedures will be adopted.

I was furious when it happened again with a different trust. I used to work in the NHS and I understand the importance of getting patients records right.

I was a bit miffed when I phoned to chase an appointment and found that I'd been marked as DNA because they sent the appointment to the old address - for two clinics!

Unfortunately, the error can't be traced, because the system is correct and they can't find out why it happened.

In my experience its to be expected.

I will never use an NHS hospital again. I was wrongly told I had cancer by a SHO, and had to wait 8 weeks for the histology to show I didn't.

Another time I had surgery to remove a ovarian cyst. Woke up, asked how it had gone and was told Id had manual removal of a placenta. I wasn't even pregnant but foolish foreign nurse insisted I was but had forgotten. She had picked up the wrong notes because her grasp of the English language was so lousy.

Bupa from now on

I think the NhS is second rate and dangerous and has managed to create a pathetically pleased public who genuinely believe that nobody anywhere else in the world has access to public healthcare. I lived in Bangladesh for three years and their healthcare was far better, mainly because patients didn't feel guilty for bothering a doctor. It is all very well to be a simpering armchair socialist, especially when you never actually lived abroad and experienced safe and efficient healthcare

I thank the lord one of my benefits from work is private healthcare.