Doctor's fucking punctuality

[AnotherTimeMaybe]

So went to doctor today and he was late again! Previous patient came late so he couldn't just chuck him out and he took me half hour later ,I was late for school pick up ended up paying late care
I don't get it, why are they allowed to be late we are supposed to accept it or leave and miss the appointment for which I had to take day off! And if we are late they wait for 5 minutes and then you go back to the bottom of the queue
AIBU ? Is this a life sentence?

Doctors can't have longer appointment times whilst still keeping waiting times down without a lot more doctors though.
It does annoy me when people think doctors should apologise for being late when it's not their frigging fault. They'd love to be running on time too. Pay more tax and have more doctors, or accept short waiting times and don't expect explanations of what is wrong with you or anything other than a cursory examination and history or be prepared to wait a while. It doesn't take all day but it might take 40 minutes.

I find it telling , and a bit sad that Drs on the thread are justifying running late when it is a workload problem rather than a time management problem.
I went to a teaching session the other day and one GP trainee there said he spends much of his time apologising.. For things that aren't actually his fault. When a patient makes a complaint, even when there is no harm done and it is not upheld , the Drs there were told they must apologise..but what for?! Who is looking after the Drs in all of this?

Of course they can tell the fucking time, just unfortunately they are busy seeing numerous other patients and unfortunately the world doesn't revolve around you.

Receptionist here. Just wrote a massive rant post about what we do all day and why we can't be in the waiting room every 15mins to tell patients which Hcp are running late.
My phone deleted it. Probably for the best. Today was a difficult day.

We once had a child come in with breathing difficulties who was seen by both GP and nurse while waiting for an ambulance. Despite being advised there was now a wait one patient kicked off because the nurse didn't do his ear syringe on time.

Incidentally, I've also had a member of the public complain that an ambulance was blocking the road and demand that it be moved immediately despite the patient being extremely ill. If the driver of the car on double yellows -who parked after the ambulance- wasn't in the co-op it would have been ok.
Aaargh see another rant.
to our doctors and nurses, I couldn't do your job, everyone I know has much more patience than me.

I am PA to a Consultant Psychiatrist and I hate DNA (Did Not Attend) patients. A first appointment is given a 90 min slot (yes... a whole hour and half). 50% of them never turn up! They then get given another chance to attend... yes, that's another 90 min slot. Chances are they never turn up again. That is 3 HOURS of Consultant time wasted.

No wonder waiting lists for psychiatry are 4 months min.

Today the outpatient clinic was running 50 mins late. Patients were kicking off in the waiting room, not realising that the doctor was stuck on the inpatient ward, dealing with a young patient who was trying to kill herself due to overdosing on illegal highs, needing sedation etc.

Probably because I didn't fling the 3 depressed patients in a row out of my room after 10 minutes.

Oh god are we that bad...us depressives. Genuine question....

My GP said he wanted to see me again....I didnt ask.

I used to be a practice nurse.
My clinics usually ran to time, because my appointment slots varied length wise dependant on the reason the patient was booking the appointment. So 2 minutes to do someone's bloods, or 5 minutes if they said they've got tricky veins to 30 minutes for bilateral leg ulcer dressings.
Sometimes I ran late, because shit goes wrong, because the patient needed me, because whilst I was immunising their baby the mother broke down and told me she was feeling depressed, because they came for a blood test and had a fucking heart attack.
The GP's do not get the luxury of time, their workload is incredibly high and the pressure is unrelenting.
One doctor I worked with regularly did 6/7 days a week, he came in on his days off to catch up on paperwork but there just wasn't the time.
Our NHS is fracturing, there's just not enough doctors.
You'd have gotten very short shrift from me OP if you came out with that pile of wank at me.

Two minutes to do bloods?!? That's insane, Dotty. It might be fine during a warm summer, with everyone in short sleeves, but during the winter, no way. (I have multiple health problems, so it feels like I'm getting a needle stuck in me frequently ATM).

, , and a much needed comfort break for all of the HCPs on this thread.

I really do try to keep to time but

If I turn up to clinic late that will be because I was trying to stop someone on the ward killing themselves/ someone else and not because I had an extra sandwich (I pretty much don't do lunch as there's never time)

If clinic appts start to run behind that will be because it is hard to tell someone who is depressed and crying that their time is up and even harder to get a manic person to leave the room.

If someone brings 10 different relatives all shouting over one another along to the appt that will tend to take longer too...

Or I get interrupted by urgent calls from the ward/ GPs/ CPN wanting advice 'inbetween appts' for which no time is allowed.

The very worst was a general medical clinic I worked as a registrar. That clinic was 2-3 hrs late every time by the end. It was because it was so overbooked there were 3 patients in every 10 min slot. You were late before you even started but they had to do it to meet waiting time targets. I started off apologising and letting people know but after a while I couldn't face the explaining and sometimes abuse so I just put my head down and ploughed on. The consultant used to go out around lunchtime when it was due to end and inform the queue of people waiting that we were still on the 11am appts and they should put some more money in the meter or go for lunch and come back. Once a guy bought me a sandwich and I nearly cried! After it was finally over there was still another few hours work dictating letters and ordering investigations.
The hospital knew full well how bad it was but there is no financial penalty for waiting times on the day whereas there is for failing to hit the waiting time target for appts. The solution would have been an extra clinic but why should they pay for that when they can get overtime for free.

Thanks for all of you who have been sympathetic to the medics.. Really a big thank you.

Here are reasons why I was late to my clinic recently

One of my patients started confessing to me about something which he had not spoken off for the last 20 years since he lost his partner who committed suicide which explained a lot of his actions/ behaviour and delayed my ward rounds by atleast 45 minutes last week. But it was worth it as he was stigmatised so much for being a homosexual and he could not speak about any of this to anyone in the past. Saw him yesterday he is on right treatment and was such a different person.

I lost a close relative a week Friday suddenly and went to work on Monday morning.. Yes late to start my theatre by 20 mins...as I could not face walking into theatre that morning and had to go to staff room first. I did not want to cancel my commitments as my patients have been waiting for weeks, months to see me( I am a specialist in hospital)

Once again thank,you got everyone who has been supportive...

the only dr I have used who was always on time was one with no social skills whatsoever.

I prefer the one who overruns because I know she is giving every patient her all- and she was fabulous when I was in tears over some test results.

Have some compassion or go for a doctor who does the '10 mins your time is up' appraoch regardless of your need.

Yep two whole minutes shadow to get sleeves up or the 875 layers off, wash hands, glove up, find a vein, take a sample, label up, wash hands and input into the computer. Was buggered if they were a bit of a fainter however I'm bloody brilliant at finding veins!
Hope you're feeling ok and less like a pin cushion soon :)

I want to share two positive docs stories - a few months ago I had booked an appointment with my doctor, arrived and the reception and they had no record of my booking (computer malfunction). Rather than turn me away the doctor went above and beyond to fit me in when someone else hadn't turned up for their slot. I was hugely appreciative of this.

Also yesterday I had a specialist appointment, I arrived 20mins early expecting to wait and was seen straight away.

Appreciate there are stresses for medical staff but some of it is due to an NHS culture that patients can be kept waiting because they've nothing better to do. If the pressures on doctors are so geat why don't clinic staff/notices reflect that rather than appear to tell the patients off, often in capitals.

Who can we write to because I understand isn't the fault of individual doctors but it us a management issue. Going back to hospital at 8.15 today fir the Xray the consultant ordered for me on Tuesday because at 11am on Tuesday there was a two hour wait for the xray. I don't mind doing that but if the letter had said you may be here for 4/5 hours I could have taken the morning off and planned for it. I waited 9 weeks fir the appointment and will wait 12 weeks for the treatment I need. The website says 17 weeks fir treatment. It isn't life threatening, just a chronic underlying problem but mire needs to be done to keep people like me working reliably to continue funding the NHS. There is a lack of appreciation that working people in other sectors have to be reliable.

Who would the doctors like me to write to? I don't think services are worse than they were during the Blair years when ridiculous levels of funding were pushed into the PCTs introducing an unnecessary level of bureacracy.

It was not ridiculous levels of funding. We still spent less on healthcare then that most European countries. There are always people in these threads who talk about how much better healthcare is in x or y country, but neglect to mention that people pay way more for their healthcare. Decent healthcare costs.
If you don't want your Dr to run late, then time has to be built in for emergencies. That means at times the Dr will be sitting around with no patients to see. I suspect many of you would also think that is inefficient.

Write to your Mp and ask how they plan to recruit, train and retain enough doctors.
Lobby for more doctors.

I don't expect appointments to run on time - the fantastic GPs at our practice are overworked as it is, and an emergency or more complex or serious issue will rightly take more time. Instead I treat them as guidelines and grateful that we can usually get a same day or next day appointment. My fantastic GP goes above and beyond, the other day I took my daughter in about a condition she has, GP said she'd like to read up on it and get back to me later - rang me back at 6:30 in the evening to talk things through. For that level of support I don't mind waiting for appointments! If she runs late I imagine it will be for a very good reason; I will sometimes ask receptionists how much longer it's likely to be, but would never complain.

YABU you don't know the circumstances as to why they were running late, maybe they had an emergency to deal with

I always allow plenty of time when I go as things happen

So would you rather he said: 'ten minutes is up; haven't time to talk about that small lump, expect it will keep, see you soon?'
You know Doctor's appointments are unpredictable and should have foreseen the possibilty of running late.
Nothing to do with Governments; human nature and need.

The horrible GP I had for a short while who did run to time, would have said that Goblin. He would just have told me to book another appointment. I much prefer the Dr I have now, who will spend the time needed.

At our doctors there are two types of doctor, the ones that run to time comewhat may and those who care about the patients and listen to them. Depending on what the visit is for I choose whether to be called in at 4.59 or 5.45 for a 5pm appointment. I'm sure the receptionists would advise accordingly on who was most likely to run to time .

So yabu op and need to do some research if you prefer an on time appointment.

When I had a breakdown, I spend 45 minutes in with the wonderful doctor two weeks in a row.

She was amazing. Those 45 minutes where I was listened to and respected and made to feel worthwhile made the difference between me being a heap on the floor and me being able to make some headway with dealing with the issues that had caused it in the first place.

Last week I had an appointment with the GP. Just as I was about to leave the house I got a phone call to say that the Doctor had been called away on an emergency, and they didn't know when she would be back. Could I come in at 4pm instead of 11am? I don't know what the emergency was, but clearly that person was more in need of the doctors time than I was in that moment.

The best doctors are incredible compassionate caring people. Which also makes them more likely to run late because they will take the time the patient needs rather than the time the NHS allows.

I'd rather wait for a doctor like that, than be seen on time by someone like the doctor that cleaty had for a short time.