If you arrived half an hour late for an appointment

[RadgePacket]

Would you still expect to have it?

Depends. You can easily wait half an hour to see your GP EVERY TIME you go, so I would hope for some flexibility in return. But not expect it.

If it was my personal trainer and I had paid for 1 hour, I would absolutely expect to be able to use my remaining half an hour.

Yes when I questioned if I would be waiting any longer .. I got told "yeah you have been waiting a while haven't you? The client before you was late due to traffic."

So I was driving in more rush hour traffic yet can make it on time.

Annoyed me more that until I bothered to speak up I never got an apology or explanation

No.

Nope. Although you may well have been today if you lived near Birmingham as traffic was a bear due to zee bomb.

I'd hope but not expect that someone else was early, had mine and then I could get theirs!

I que t to see a therapist once. A day when it was snowing. I normally have an hour travel to get there.
He looked at me amazed and said, youbare the first person today who has arrived on time. A lot have cancel when they are living two streets away (so could have just walked!!) or arrived late.

When you want to be there in time, you do.
But people tend to be quite blaze about it...

i arrived 15 mins late for massage after a road was closed and I had to use a complicated diversion. I just accepted I would pay for 1 hour but only get 45 mins.

I wouldn't expect to be seen, I always plan my travel well and am only ever late if there has been a crash or something.
Because it's bloody rude!
We nearly had to ditch a hospital appointment recently as the clinic was running an hour late and we had other appointments. This particular clinic (regular check ups, 3 monthly) has never run to time. Even if you are the first appointment you can expect to go in at least 20 minutes past your time. It's shit. There's no staff urgency and the doctors stroll in late. It's really infuriating to have a 9am appointment, get there at say 8.45am because you left with time to spare and then sit there for half an hour before the person leading the clinic deigns to arrive.

I've had this before at a hairdressers. Turned up just before my booked appointment. Sat and waited until 20 minutes after my scheduled time, then went and enquired at the desk only to be told that they were running late because the client before me had turned up 30 mins late. Apparently as she was a regular they'd agreed to squeeze her in anyway.

I got a blank look when I pointed out that I'd been given no control over being made late and that it was rather rude to just assume that I had nothing better to do with my time - and that it was going to cost me extra in parking as a result. I picked up my coat and bag at which point the receptionist looked rather shocked and asked me if I was leaving and if I wanted to re-schedule. I said I would be arranging another appointment but not at their salon.

I arrived for a hair appointment at a well-known salon to be told the stylist wasn't ready. Fair enough, I thought. She'd be through in a short while so waited. And waited. After over 30 minutes a bouncy TV presenter came out of the private room with a cameraman in tow and my fucking hairdresser, shoved a mic under my nose and shrieked: 'Doesn't my hair look fabulous?'

They'd bumped me for a TV slot.

I said: 'You look like a freak and I'm never coming back to this fucking place.'

MrsTrent you know doctors will have other things to do in the morning before clinic starts right? Handover meetings, ward rounds, call backs etc. any of which can overrun. They aren't sauntering in late to the first patient because they fancied a lie in!

Every single clinic since we've been attending? I doubt it. We've attended for 3 years. Not a single appointment has ever run to time. Not one.

MrsTrentReznor or the doctors could be covering the wards as well as the clinic and have been in the hospital from 7.30 as I frequently have since there are far fewer doctors than are actually needed. I'm not saying this is acceptable but the doctors are usually trying to do their best despite really difficult circumstances

I work as a GP Receptionist and the time I give is the time the Doctor intends on calling you in. Surprisingly they do sometimes run on time and quite rarely a patient has been in and out before the time they were supposed to be seen.

What annoys me most is the patients who are constantly late for their appointments which inconveniences the people who turn up before their time. I tell these people their appointment is 10 mins before the time I book them in. Hasn't failed so far

@mrstrent

We nearly had to ditch a hospital appointment recently as the clinic was running an hour late and we had other appointments. This particular clinic (regular check ups, 3 monthly) has never run to time.

Even if you are the first appointment you can expect to go in at least 20 minutes past your time. It's shit. There's no staff urgency and the doctors stroll in late. It's really infuriating to have a 9am appointment, get there at say 8.45am because you left with time to spare and then sit there for half an hour before the person leading the clinic deigns to arrive.

This 100%. We went to a dentist for five years (as we couldn't get into another one at the time,) and without fail, no matter what time of day we went, he was 25 to 45 minutes late. One morning we went for a 9.20am appointment, and didn't get in til 10am. They didn't open til 9am! How the fuck did they get THAT far behind that early?!

And there are numerous examples similar to this. With the dentist, the doctor, the clinic, the hospital. I am not some kind of special snowflake and I understand there are other things going on yada yada, but it's every time.

@bluepeppers

Yes our dentist doesn't even manage to start in time for the first appointment of the day!!

This ^

@rachel1983
FreeSpirit do you ever think they have been seeing someone who's just had bad news or had to tell someone they have cancer or a hundred other things which don't fit neatly into a 10 minute appt?

Yeah I am pretty sure that is almost never the reason, because the doctors and specialists etc (at the medical practice, the clinic and the hospital,) are half hour, to an hour and a quarter late, EVERY TIME. And the nurses are too (about 2 thirds of the time.)

As I said earlier, it was the same with the dentist I went to for five years. And it's almost never 'emergencies;' it's just very bad time management. Maybe they double book, I don't know, but it fucks me off. As I said, I am not a snowflake or a princess who thinks I deserve special treatment, and I know shit happens, but it's every damn time. EVERY time.

No matter what the 'reasons' or 'excuses,' I do have other things to do with my life, other than wasting it in waiting rooms, not getting into my appointment until an hour (sometimes) after my appointment time.

My previous dentist was notorious for starting his surgery late. I usually try and get a 9am appointment so I could go to work after without interrupting a while day. He always arrived after me (at about 9.05) in his cycling gear, took ten mins to change then chatted to the receptionist, briefed the nurse about today's patients so I might get in to the chair about 9.25, by which time the next person had arrived.

And I was a private patient as no NHS places available! Grrrrrrr.

It depends, as a solicitor I don't tend to book back to back appointment so I don't care if clients are late. I will say what time I have to leave if appointment is late afternoon evening, or arrange childcare if I expect to be late.

At a gp 10 mins yes I expect to be seen but may have to wait, ditto hospital, 30 mins at gp not necessarily, at hospital yes if the reason for being late is outside my control. But I don't mind waiting either and for much longer. I would always call on the way though to check, hospitals give you numbers. It depends so much I find, this morning I had a 2 hour journey to get to hospital appointment, so left 2 hours 30. That is reasonable and it would be train delay etc that caused me to be late, but at my clinic this morning I know they only do the list after the pre med. if I am there earlier I get the 4th/5th slot not the 7th... The 7th is for someone who travels 15 mins usually. Seems fair enough to me,

Internal meetings I go to those who travel furthest 2 hours ish are early this who take the lift 2 floors are always late as they will just do this....

I had a GP appointment at 8,30am- the first of the day and when l enquired after 40 minutes wait l was told he hadn't come in yet. I had to leave without being seen so l wouldn't be late for patients coming to see me.
As a rule of thumb l tend to allow 1/2 the appointment time to be late ie 10 minute appointment -5 minutes late. That saying if l know the patient and it's not normal for them l will suggest l can see them if they will wait till l either have space or to the end of surgery.
You do get the normal piss takers who tend to turn up when they feel like it---- they get sent on their merry way.
My argument is that a train or aeroplane wouldn't wait if you were late so why should l.

Like I said it was really the lack of any acknowledgment that I'd been sat there waiting. An apology goes a long way.

MrsTrentReznor may be right in her suspicions. It may shock people to know, but not everyone who works in the NHS is an angel.

I was once settling down to sleep at 10pm in hospital when a doctor on my treatment team came in with two others saying they needed to test an implant that I have.

I wasn't quite sure of his rank. I think he was a junior consultant or a trainee consultant or whatever it's called and they were newly-qualified doctors who were training in that particular speciality. But no matter. I recognised them all and I trusted them to help me. So I agreed without asking whether this was necessary.

The procedure is painful and their examinations went on for about half an hour because they kept getting it wrong. They apologised for their clumsiness and I said it was okay because they were helping me.

Eventually they finished and I said goodnight. Then he said: 'You're going to have to go down to x-ray for the implant to be scanned so we can make sure the re-calibration is correct.'

It was just a fucking training exercise. He loved himself and was trying to impress the two girlies under him by using me like a fucking lab rat.

By the time the porter came for me, left me in an uncomfortable wheelchair in a corridor with a thin blanket, I was x-rayed which was painful, given the awkward position I had to get into and hold and then had to wait to be portered back it was gone 1am.

You can bet I complained about that cunt and said I didn't want him involved in my care. He wasn't but he had the cheek to keep glaring at me from a distance. Thinking about it, I should have made an official complaint.

Everyone else who cared for me from cleaners right up to the senior consultant was good and some were great. But I'm not going to accept that all NHS staff are lovely SpuriouserAndSpuriouser. How could they be? These are human beings, not saints

At the cancer clinic we took my relative too they were always at least an hour late due to sheer numbers of people versus doctors - the first half dozen people are seen on time but then 10 minutes is nowhere near long enough for some
Appointments.

Their policy is that if you are late you go after everyone else who is already there. There was a guy who had an appointment at 10.30 and he didn't turn up til 10.45. He was furious to have to go after the 10.40 and 10.45 people, but he's lucky they have that policy imo. They only have it because the nature of the clinic means people can genuinely struggle getting there.

The reality is, we are quite used to use different standards in different situations.
So GP or nurse is normal and usual.
Hospital appointments are normally late too.

But go and see a hairdresser or a therapist and then it's totally unacceptable...

I was late 5 mins to a GP appt once and the receptionist got all snotty with me and told me I might not be seen because I was late. I got seen late anyways as the people who had their appts before me got called in AFTER I arrived.

No, not everyone in the NHS is an angel, that is not what I am saying. I am just saying that there could be a myriad of reasons the clinic is running late. The doctors are generally not the ones making the bookings (not in my trust anyway), that is done by a receptionist. The patients are mostly planned in for a standard amount of time, not taking into account the patient, or the complexity of their problems. Most days we are set up to fail, there is absolutely no way you can keep to those times. What do you want us to do, boot the patients out the door after ten minutes? That's not even taking into account writing up the notes, ordering tests, answering phone calls, etc etc etc

If someone turns up late for a treatment (like a beauty treatment or massage etc) then the time should be deducted from their allotted time. If her appointment was a 1hr booking then turning up 30 mins late should give her 30 mins left and she should still be charged the full price. This is not considered unacceptable....it's the norm in my experience.