About how some people treat NHS staff

[YellowTulips]

Been in out patients today to see my consultant as part of an ongoing chronic condition.

Arrived on time but as is the case there was a bit of a wait time. In context mine was 30 mins so not really hugely significant.

I just sat and read my book but became more aware of the seething resentment around me.

Lots of nasty comments about why are we waiting, I pay my taxes, what's that bloody nurse doing etc

Then this escalated into harassing the clinic reception staff and being rude.

I honestly couldn't believe it. The staff were obviously busy and appointment times had slipped.

Part of the irony (to me) was that my condition usually impacts older people, so the vast majority of complainers were retired whereas I'd had to take the day off!

I'm didn't think I had judge pants but I was wearing them today.

Really awful behaviour

In my old job as a PA, if the partner that I worked for was running late, I would call the next clients and advise them of this so they could make an informed decision - did it still suit them to come? - and also so that they knew not to rush unnecessarily.

I have had to attend an NHS clinic regularly over the past 3 years and invariably rush from work via a hideous commute and arrive to a packed waiting room with a notice on the white board: [Consultant's name] is running approx. 1 hr late.

Why they can't call people to advise them of this, I'll never understand. They're quick enough to text to remind you of your appointment and threaten a no-show fee (this also annoys me as I have never yet been late or not shown up, however they have cancelled on me more than once last minute).

Finally, it's never the time that it says anyway. I've waited 3 hours+ before and been snapped at when I questioned how much longer.

I am grateful for the NHS but would honestly sometimes rather pay for healthcare that ran efficiently.

It's not acceptable for staff to be rude to patients or patients to be rude to staff.

The problem with hospital clinics has been outlined - doctors will often deal with ward patients or have meetings before the clinic starts, emergencies happen.

With regards to GPs - I have never worked anywhere where patients are double-booked into the same appointment unless this is an emergency appointment and there are no more available. The patient should obviously be told that they are likely to have to wait. Regarding routine appointments: appointments last 10 minutes. This includes waiting for the patient to come into the room, reading the notes (often this happens simultaneously of course) and documenting. So about 8-9 minutes tops. Almost all patients have no concept of how long this is. at least 2/3 of patients bring multiple problems.

If I am overrunning it's because multiple people brought multiple complex problems, I also have to run multiple other routine checks on people and very likely because I had to do something complex in itself - ie tell someone they probably have cancer, help someone with their deep depression, listen to a mother whose child has reflux and she's at the end of her tether or just have a patient who finds it hard to give a concise history.

I have also never worked anywhere where you can't make a double appointment, but understand this might be different in other practices.

Also regarding ringing people if the clinic is running late - who is going to do that? If there are 20 people to ring that is going to take an hour each time and it will cost money. The problem with the NHS is that successive governments are obsessed with making it too damn efficient - there is no space in the service to do such a thing.

I hate the way that the NHS assumes that the patients' time is much less valuable than the Dr's. That's why they give about 10 people the same appointment time, so the Dr always has someone to see and his/her time isn't wasted. It doesn't seem to matter to them that they are wasting everyone else's time!

I had a fracture clinic appointment recently, for 9.30am. Not wishing to risk being late I arrived at 9.20 and booked in.

I was finally called at 11.15, only to be shown into an empty treatment room, to wait for the Dr. By 11.45, I was beginning to think they had forgotten about me and spent the next 10 minutes wondering whether I should make my way back to reception.

Finally, at just after midday, a Dr appeared and my 5-minute check up took place.

The clinic had not seemed particularly busy, but nothing seemed to be happening all morning.

I work for the NHS. I have kept quite a few people waiting for their appointments today.

My first appointment of the day arrived 30 minutes late as they had overslept. So I started my day behind.

During my second appointment a parent became extremely verbally abusive and threatened me and a student who was observing me. He was eventually escorted form the building by security. My student was quite distressed and I needed to spend a bit of time with her afterwards to make sure she was OK. This put me further behind obviously.

My third appointment of the day also arrived late (about 20 minutes) as they had to take their dog to the vet apparently.

Towards the end of my next appointment a potentially serious safeguarding issue was disclosed so I had to spend time gathering the correct information to pass onto social care and the police. This meant the appointment ran over by about half an hour.

None of this is even remotely unusual.

No one likes waiting. It's tedious and frustrating, I get that. I don't think I've ever seen my own GP without having to wait at least 30 minutes after my appointment time and yes, it's annoying but I understand that it also might also be due to more complex reasons than NHS staff simply not giving a shit. If people feel they have had to endure an unnecessary wait and then they can complain through the proper channels, they are not entitled to verbally abuse staff.

I was just about to say exactly the same thing you have said Sirzy and I am a consultant working in NHS
. In my speciality there are only two of us
Our clinics are not always cancelled when we are on call for emergencies the previous night. My DH who is a surgeon would have been operating till early hours of the morning and still would do a clinic in the morning rather than cancelling it.
we are only given 10 minutes to see a patient and I regularly add patients to my list of patients if they have had abnormal investigations which needs to be acted on immediately.
Sometime the patients are so rude to the receptionists, the nurses outside the consulting room and I had to recently say to a patient that everyone of us in this department are as important as others, as he had insulted the nurse so badly. She is a polite, hardworking helpful nurse who has been doing her job for more than 20 hears.

YANBU. I love the NHS! It's not perfect by any stretch and I could certainly tell a tale or two. But like all public services at present, it's stretched to the limit- the staff are all heroes-it's not a 5* hotel service. I would prefer it to the U.S. system any day-if you can't pay you really are in trouble. As for comparisons with other European systems, they are funded to a much higher level (unsustainably so). I see NHS as a privilege not a right. However, I do try not to judge people moaning; who knows what they are suffering, or if they have dementia.

Also, just to add that I have never worked in any setting where multiple people are deliberately double booked into the same appointment.

I spoke to a patient yesterday who had been offered 4 different appointment dates and times throughout August and September and refused every one because "they are all inconvenient for me". We finally settled on a date at the start of October which apparently was convenient... but she warned that she was going to lodge a complaint because of the "long wait" when she was struggling so much with her symptoms. I wanted so badly to wish her luck with that.

Waiting is tedious but patients have responsibilities too. Our local surgery publishes its DNA (did not attend) figures. In June more than 1,200 patients failed to turn up for their appointments.

wheresthetea, that doesn't surprise me. A couple of weeks ago I was due to see a young lad whose Mother has been bombarding our duty desk with multiple phonecalls a day demanding his appointment be brought forward as he is so seriously unwell. So we brought it forward and they didn't turn up. Turns out they had booked a last minute holiday She then threatened to complain when told that her son will now go back to the bottom of the waiting list.

Ds has lots of appointments and I accept there are good reasons why we are often kept waiting. Equally hospital staff have to understand that a child with severe sn is not going to wait patiently and I cannot keep him quiet or confined to his sn buggy for a hour. Also do not complain when he is on the floor becoming distressed because of waiting.

I am sure there are usually very good reasons why patient appointments run late, but.......

I went to GP surgery today for 11.30 appointment with the Practice Nurse for a smeat test. Booked in at reception at 11.25 and to my astonishment only me there! 25 minutes later I'm still waiting for the Nurse to call me in, so I asked reception "Is the Nurse here?". Oh yes they said, she's busy with patient before you. The next second I get called in - no-one came out of the nurse's room (I reckon she heard me). No apology for the lateness at all.

There is no excuse for abuse, but come on..........(BTW DH has had exactly the same experience at the same surgery, waiting for nurse to take blood samples).

Would IBU to complain to the Surgery?

I expect to be late at every doctors appointment I go to. I rather enjoy it if my children are being baby sat as it gives me half an hour peace and quiet

However I can understand the frustration. Doesn't mean you can start giving abuse though

Thanks for all the different perspectives.

I do partially agree that better communication would help around wait times, but wonder if that would also cause problems?

Say there was an announcement that appointments were running 30!mins late but then due to an emergency or longer running appointment this slipped further I'm pretty sure the people I encountered yesterday would have complained about that information changing!

Like most I don't like waiting, but in a hospital I assume there is a good reason for it and that shouting at reception staff certainly isn't going to change that.

YANBU

It's usually not NHS staff fault that clinics run late or the NHS thinking DRs time is more valuable than patients' time.
People arrive late for appointments (over the course of the day everyone being 5 minutes late adds hours onto waiting times), or bring multiple problems that can't be dealt with in 10 minutes, or emergencies happen, or patients get upset, and millions of other reasons that are out of NHS control.

To all the people complaining, what do you suggest? Turn people away for being a few minutes late? Chuck patients out after their 10 minutes are up? Ignore emergencies? Deliver bad news then tell sobbing, frightened patients you don't have any more time for them?

I used to work in a very busy out patients clinic and the reasons for running late are multiple,the most common being over booked clinic lists and consultants being a registrar down.

Clinic over booking was very common due to government targets for 'new patients' if a patients doesn't get offered an appointment in a certain time frame the Trust got fined, and of course there's all the follow up patients to be seen the only way to achieve this is to over book the clinic lists.

If a consultant usually has two registrars in clinic with them that means there are 3 separate appointment lists running. If one registrar is off sick or called away on an emergency then the remaining patients are divided up and seen by the remaining two which could quite easily mean each one has to see an additional 10 patients, hence a delay.

Oh and don't forget the 'walk ins ' patients who turn up on either the wrong day /month or year or just on the off chance that they'll be able to see their doctor without an appointment because they are worried or have a worsening condition,in my experience everyone will always do their best to get a patient seen.

I realise that the above is no comfort to those who are sat in the waiting room and in an ideal world it would be great if people could be telephoned but with two receptionists and 180 patients to process within 3 hours,it would just be an impossible task.

I do agree that the NHS sometimes lacks 'good customer service ' but I really don't know what the answer is.