To ignore the letter I've received from the hospital?

[Frillyhorseyknickers]

After my 12 week scan I booked an appointment with the reception for my 20 week scan, for tomorrow.

We've just come home from bank holiday away and I received a letter either Friday or Saturday stating a different day (the day after) for my scan.

I was really miffed because I'd been looking forward to my scan (first pregnancy) and my diary is full now for the next few weeks. I had kept tomorrow afternoon free for the scan, but otherwise I am between four offices and I can't just free up a few hours at short notice.

My DH says we should go to the appointment tomorrow as booked and just discard the letter and deny all knowledge of it.

I feel really bad about doing that as it's NHS and they are obviously busy. DHs point is that we booked the appointment weeks ago, they have given us less than one working day's notice of the change and they are taking the piss.

WIBU to just turn up to the appointment I had arranged prior to this letter?

While I understand your frustrations, I do think you are being incredibly naive. Have you not seen the news or read anything about the NHS in the last few years? It's on it's knees but giving grief to the people at the coalface isn't fair. They are struggling to do a job with not enough resources.

Our experiences with the NHS are the following:

Baby 1 - massive bleeding at week 7, taken straight in at A&E, assumed I was miscarrying, losing clots and lumps of flesh. Booked in for a D&C, scanned and found one empty sac and one heartbeat. Nurses held my hand while I cried with relief. Baby was 10 days late, induced, got into difficulty and had to have an EMC. They saved our lives.

Me - spinal surgery at a hospital an hour away. Cancelled on the day after being booked in due to shortage of beds. DP had already taken a week off work to care for dc while I was away. Second surgery attempt cancelled the week before. DP managed to move time off. Third time was successful. Staff in hospital were wonderful but run off their feet.

DP - serious accident on a motorbike. Paramedics stabilised him at the scene, 3 doctors and endless nursing staff attended to him in resus where he was kept for 5 hours before being moved to another hospital for emergency surgery - an off duty consultant came in at 1am to perform the surgery. they saved his life.

This is our experience of the NHS. I cannot praise them enough. An appointment being overbooked happens and sadly yes, it's not good enough but it's a free service. Free.

I think YANBU to be disgruntled but YABU to expect the NHS to be anything like a paid for health system.

If that had happened to me I would have ignored the letter and turned up to original appointment. I would have understood if they had at least phoned and gave you a couple of dates to choose from but that's bang out of order them doing that, that close to your scan. or given you longer notice.

I've had a similar problem too about 5 years ago, I went to my 12 week scan and they made an appointment there for me, checked with me a few dates first tho. after I had finished my scan I went to get my letter for the next scan and they told me they had to change it to another day I told them I was free but I was happy with the change. On my 20wk scan I got there early and sat waiting for over an hour, finally a midwife asked my name and then she moaned at me saying my appointment was the previous day and I had wasted the appointment that someone else could of had, so I would have to set up another date. so glad I had the letter and showed her it and told her I wasn't leaving till I had my scan. They took me straight in for my scan :)

OP I don't have much to add (but PM me if you want the details of a very good Harley Street diagnostic ultrasound clinic) but I just wanted to say that reading your posts has been incredibly validating. I had recurrent miscarriage about 10 years ago and had the same sort of problems that you're having now, only over a prolonged period and covering all aspects of my care (think blood and tissue samples getting lost/having wrong results read back to me) and I was contrasting all that with seemingly everyone else's view that the NHS was this world class service we should all be grateful for. I thought I was going mad. I'm a scientist and if I treated my own work with the lack of care I saw in the NHS I'd have been fired in 3 months flat. I can't understand how people can defend the NHS the way it runs now - I always think, how can you go about in your normal life - getting your shopping delivered, booking your car in for a service - and think that the unreliability and awkwardness of the NHS is acceptable? It seems like a sort of British mass delusion that there is something special about healthcare that means it's fine for them to waste hours of your time if it saves them 10 minutes. I mean, the school system is publicly funded and it doesn't treat people like this. Other countries don't treat people like this. Anyway hearing you compare the NHS way of working with your own professional standards was very therapeutic for me, so thank you, and best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy!

20 week scans are sometimes emergency situations though. DS2's 20 week scan identified heart problems predicted to be incompatible with life. I was messed around like this 20 years ago over a 20 week scan for the next baby. We had a Labor government then.

Have you ever thought that they may have had to reschedule due to sickness or sudden absence etc?
You could just turn up and play ignorant but that doesn't mean they will see u. The person who is scanning your tummy may not be there.
Also Work cannot penalise you for taking time off for pregnancy reasons such as scans or illness due to pregnancy

frilly yanbu. Sometimes I think everyone forgets people like you are paying for the NHS. If you're able to afford private the chances are you're paying alot of tax whilst not using the NHS for your routine healthcare, you'll maybe also educate your nipper privately and save the state a bit of money that way too. No need for people to behave like shits towards you. The NHS should have the support of working people, i.e. to keep them working and productive in mind imo, that's how we create national wealth to fund these things.

I get a distinct sense that 'no money in the NHS', whilst doubtless true in its broadest sense, gets used as an excuse for various issues - poorly administered booking system looking like one of them. Whatever it cost to 'administer' your first appointment has been doubled by someone needing to send out a second one.

I was proud to work for the NHS but given the level of cuts the frontline services are facing, I just wouldn't be able to give the service the patients deserved. I left. Private practice has its merits but doesn't cover everything. It's not a replacement.
The NHS makes me feel very very sad now.

You've been given a proper shitty time on here OP. They could have rang you and changed the appt, just as they did with me last week, not maternity but paeds.

On the other hand, my 20 week scan is next weds too so I'll be thinking of you 💐 and sending happy bouncy baby vibes. Are you finding out if it's a boy or girl, OP?

I think you have had a hard time as well op. My local hospital trust have been up and down with my ultrasounds. I have had 2 referral s not go through. One my midwife managed to chase up, the other urgent (and I am having a very high pregnancy) never turned up despite multiple chasing by me and my midwives (admin department didn't answer the phone, get the impression not unusual and ignored emails). Luckily fetal medicine squeezed me in. I will praise one admin who spent 20mins on the phone with me trying to rebook my 12 wk scan which was booked a day outside the window.

I am also with another hospital trust due to my babies chd. They have been fantastic with text confirmations, emails and going out of their way to group appointments together to avoid us having to travel too often. So it can happen but perhaps only when you are not routine?

Suggesting you should drop everything with one days working notice is not acceptable and I don't blame you for contacting pals. Suggesting it is acceptable because NHS is free at point of use shows how accepting people have become of the state of the NHS

Evening everyone. Thanks for all the comments - for those still advising me to ignore the letter, that horse has bolted, my appointment was scheduled for earlier today.

To all of those posters who are adamant I'm an arsehole - crack on. The NHS is not free for me to use, it isn't free for anyone to use unless they have never been a tax payer. Ironically, I'm a higher rate tax payer and the vast majority of my healthcare is private. As I've said previously this pregnancy is my first real experience of the NHS and I'm glad I'm in a position not to rely on it. However that doesn't help the millions of people who are reliant on a failing system - you wouldn't accept that level of service in any other sector of industry I have ever dealt with.

I'm saddened by the amount of people who think one working day is an acceptable notice to an employer of what is essentially half day leave.

Anyway - I've managed to sort my entitled self out. This thread has been really interesting reading and I'm really sorry for those of you who have had utterly miserable experiences. I hope those still battling with systems end up getting a result.

Thanks RavioliOnToast good luck with your scan. We're not finding out, going to keep it a surprise are you?

sadly yes, it's not good enough but it's a free service. Free.

Not free. Not. Free.

Agree. This is NOT a free service. You are paying for it with your taxes.
It's free at the point of treatment which is very different.

I think YANBU to be disgruntled but YABU to expect the NHS to be anything like a paid for health system.

So all the net contributors should form their own private system where they can make appointments around their work schedules, then?

Where would that leave the NHS?

OP after reading the whole thread YANBU at all!

We had to do our IVF privately because the inflexibility and unreliability of the appointments times was not manageable with our jobs demands ie not being able to take half days off at a couple days notice all the time.

Re confidentiality, my hospital sends text appt reminders abd other info so phone is officially an accepted way of communication. For rescheduled appt I grt an automated call saying you new appt is date x time y, press 1 if you can attend, 2 if you want to talk to someone to reschedule etc

It is a pain but suck it up! You'll have to cancel one of your plans (your scan is more important )

Frilly we already know. Older DD wanted to know if she was getting a brother for sister this time. It's a boy! So I'll have two girls and a boy. We had a Gender scan at babybond (privately) they didn't do all the other anomaly things but I know there are scans that do.

Agree that some NHS hospitals have been texting re appointments for at least ?5-10 yrs - if they can, presumably so could other hospitals?

Schools, dentists, and yes indeed, hairdressers - have also used texting for some time.

And as other pp have said, NHS treatment is not free. I seem to remember reading that about 50% (?of earners? households? not sure) are net contributors ie pay more tax than they cost in public services etc. Though obviously it is difficult to work it out until that person has died/been sent the final bill!

Good luck with your scan op.

Lovelymess These aren't social plans, but work appointments which if you've rtft you'll know were specifically booked around this appointment. Not everyone works in an environment where they can just take time off and expect the employer to suck it up.

In contrast, I had to go to hospital for an outpatient appointment in Leuven today; arrived, went to reception where I was booked in and details taken for billing, then off to the dept where I was seen on time. New prescriptions issued there and then for me to take to the local pharmacy, and next appointment booked for July at a date and time of my choosing. The bill will arrive in the post in about 10 days or so.

I will rinse and repeat for another hospital in about a fortnight. The appointment there has been changed, as I see then every six months, but the letter altering the appointment by an hour arrived in February.

he did say that I had employment rights to take time off work for my appointments and work should have accommodated my appointment tomorrow, and it is likely to be "lost" now, due to the short notice of my cancelling my appointment tomorrow.

How bloody rude! Yes you are right to complain to PALS. if they lose an appointment it should tell them to give more than one days notice for cancellations.

There are so many reasons you might not be able to change plans at such short notice. Quoting 'legal rights' just assumes that everyone else's time can be sacrificed when that's not always possible or desirable.

You could have been on a plane, running a meeting, anything. There just seems to be a discounting of a woman's time loaded into that sentence.

Could you afford to go private? The NHS is at breaking point so they have probably cancelled you as they are understaffed. Just turning up is unlikely to get you anywhere. I get how disappointed you must be. Good luck with your baby x

£120 or so of NHS money down the drain for an average outpatient appointment plus another lost slot when you have to be reappointed.

I know its short notice but services are under extreme pressure, don't believe any of the crap about an additional £10 billion of NHS funding, in real terms there has been no more money for more than 5 yrs.

There is also a growing culture of appointments not being important, patients cancel on the day for really trivial reasons. Please support your hospital and try and go.

Gosh, I'm sorry the appointment for your free health care is inconvenient for you.

Right, I would be really very interested to here what your job is, not just MM but actually all of the many posters who share the view that I should have taken time off work at short notice to make the proposed appointment which was tomorrow morning. Where do you work, what responsibilities do you have, how would your employer cope with less that one working days notice that you are having 1/2 day off?

Because I just cannot do that. I am head of a department, I am 16 people's line manager - it is a bad example to set to colleagues. I work from several different offices and I arrange my work load around that. I have a lot of very loyal clients who I am not prepared to fuck about.

I'm not jollying about playing ponies and driving range rovers over pink hills all fucking day - I'm working. I suspect if you haven't worked as a fee earning environment and have minimal responsibility, it might be difficult to grasp. But most careers give you an element of responsibility and I doubt a days notice is acceptable to many employers.

*hear.