to think a hospital clinic shouldn't run this late

[GalaxyInMyPants]

Over two hours late. My appt was half eleven but theres a poor woman sat here who's appt was ten o'clock. Loads to be seen before me.

nowhere to get food. Not even a water fountain.

last time I came there was a three hour delay.

I do love the nhs but this is seriously rubbish m

After 20 years experience of attending regular and varied hospital clinics, I just accept that I do not know how long I will be there and sit it out. I understand the many complexities of running a clinic and have figured out the doubling up of appt times long ago.

However, I object to being told that I am not allowed to eat or drink in the waiting area - I am there if my own free will, not a prisoner and if you are going to keep me there for longer than I should be there then don't take away my choice to stay fed and watered. I cannot think of a single occasion when either myself or DD have needed to have a test done at a clinic that involves being Nil by mouth and if that was a possibility, I would expect to have been told in advance.

Also, if you are going to put up a white board that says "X consultant is running X mins late" then keep it up to date - it only takes seconds to do. The last clinic I attended with DD said the consultant was running 30 mins late when in fact it was at least 1 1/2 hrs late - and if the receptionist doesn't know how late it is running, just ask the patients who are sitting there - it was the main topic of discussion!

I have joint problems which mean I can't sit for long. When I arrive for any appointments I always ask how late the clinic is running (which they don't like!) but I explain that I really can't sit for more than 30 minutes without extreme pain.

If there is more than an hour delay I go to the hospital cafe or ride my scooter around the hospital grounds and return later, telling the nurses first. I get up and walk around every 10 minutes to avoid my joints stiffening which tends to be disruptive for everyone around and also ask the other patients how long they have waited to understand the time that I will be seen. I suspect my consultants and hospital administrators all hate me as they tend to remember me

With surgery being very delayed, it's dangerous. I was left waiting for surgery all day in a hot airless clinic with no fluids, as were other patients. Several of us had bad reactions to the anaesthetics/became dehydrated and at least two had to be admitted overnight for a routine day surgery case- I was in for three days.

I get what everyone is saying about resources, however I was quite surprised when we asked about going private and I was told we could book the consultant my husband was seeing (through the NHS) for pretty much any day the following week, as long as we paid, but if we wanted to wait, it was about three months on the NHS. We paid, got the appointment of our choice with the same NHS/private doctor a couple of days later. He did have plenty of time in his schedule, not for NHS patients obviously.

There are plenty of things you can do to tackle clinics running late and some of the really good managers/nurses/admin people already do them- book slightly longer appointments which reflect actual rather than imaginary time taken, text reminders day before, stagger start times across a few slots, work out of 9-5 so more people can attend and so on. Our NHS dentist has no problems doing out of hours slots, Sat slots, texting us the day before, and implementing a penalty if you don't show up twice.

If everyone turns up at 9.30 for a 9.30-12.30 clinic, the only winners are the car parking companies ripping off people at hospitals. It also smacks of an old-fashioned mentality on the part of consultants- I am very important, everyone has to arrive early and I come when I can. Not efficient for the economy as a whole to have one to two adults economically inactive for up to a day at a time for appointments, even if it is 'economical' for the NHS.

Most areas of the NHS run at 98-100% capacity. Politicians seem to think this is a "good thing" as it's efficient use of resources. Unfortunately it often makes it horribly inefficient, eg patients being prepped for surgery and they having no bed to go to, patients having their clinic appointment changed so many times that they end up going to clinic on the wrong day, psychiatric patients being transported hundreds of miles to the nearest available bed and a high rate of transmission of hospital acquired infections due to high bed occupancy rates. It also makes the waiting times long.

If the NHS was looking for patient satisfaction then of course there would be incentive to reduce clinic waiting times. However the Government's main goal is for efficiency, and it's more efficient to have all the patients waiting for the doctor when the doctor is ready than to risk having empty appointments when specialists are sat waiting for patients to arrive.