Doctor's appointment

[10greenapples]

I missed a drs appointment for my dd as I just wasn't going to make it on time. Anyway today I recieved a letter which says if one more appointment is missed she won't be allowed another one for 6 months! We can cancel an appointment but need to give an hours notice. So we will only be seen at the walk in if another is missed which is 8am-11am and a 2 hour wait. Aibu in thinking this seems pretty harsh?!

Yanbu to miss the appt due to circumstances beyond your control.

YABU to simply not turn up at all. Those signs are probably there to encourage people to be on time. I think it's unlikely that they would have refused to see a child due to circumstances beyond the parents' control.

YWBU to both not turn up and not notify them of the reason.

If the Op is on payg then the numbers used by dr surgeries can be v v expensive and if she was held in a queue could easily swallow £5 before it was answered.

Could you have texted someone and asked them to ring on your behalf? You could also have asked the pharmacist as a pp suggested.

It's possible that you would have been seen or not received the letter had you had the good grace to either turn up or phone with an explanation.

It's really difficult to understand that you just cracked on with your day & forgot about it.

My last suggestion still stands. Doubly so of you were on public transport. So you can tell people you'll be late when there's traffic, the bus doesn't turn up etc.
And actually considering your daughters eye, I jisge you for not going there anyway and begging to them to reschedule

Cancelling an appointment is necessary if not needed, but even if you are stuck in traffic you still should have phoned, apologised explained the situation and they may well have juggled things round for you. People not turning up costs the NHS money!

Surely if you were on the way on the bus, you'd get off at the GP surgery and be able to go in to apologise/rearrange appt. Possibly they'd have seen you anyway due to the nature of the delay. Then carried on with your day. What did you do - get off the bus? Carry on further?

Not sure about posters saying it would delay other patients though - the doctor doesn't just sit there twiddling their thumbs waiting for you, they see the next patient! There's a sign in my surgery saying how many appointments have been missed and how much of the doctors' time that's wasted, but they are always always running late so presumably they'd have to stay even later if all the patients turned up?

The phone thing is a red herring. The thing is the OP is outraged that she should be expected to have the decency to contact the GP for a missed appointment at all. Afterall, many of us will have missed an appointment at some point for whatever reason, but a phone call and apology and making sure it's never repeated usually sorts it out.

There are people who don't really think they need to be held accountable for their actions in anyway (but are probably very good at holding others accountable!)

Ours is 24 hours notice. If you don't give them 24 hours notice there is a warning. Even if it's a genuine emergency.

OP, I think perhaps you don't understand how the GPs surgery felt. They knew you had an appointment, they were wondering if you'd be late, if they could squeeze you in.

Then you were 'no show, no call'.

You were on your way there anyway so you could have arrived late, explained about the traffic and apologised.

You could have called em route, it wouldn't have cost £5.

You could have called later when you got home.

You wasted their time. The traffic wasn't your fault, these things happen. But then you just ignored the fact you had an appointment.

Imagine you were meeting a friend at the soft play centre and you were late. Would you call? Or think, oh well it's too late no anyway, I'll just take DD to the park instead?

The GP staff are human beings, not robots. Treat them like that.

Please give me another example of where you can "get yourself in trouble" for not being able to make a phone call?! Don't be ridiculous. As a pp said, they didn't have mobiles for alot of people growing up and people managed! so don't make me laugh.

It's how people mitigate against negative consequences.

Like my DD who was stuck on the bus in traffic a couple of days ago - she had credit on her phone, and her work number programmed in, so called them up to explain she'd be late.

As a result, she wasn't disciplined when she did arrive, because she'd kept them informed and they accepted that it wasn't her fault, even though it was damn inconvenient for them. I doubt they'd have been so accommodating if she'd just rocked up 10 minutes late.

You can spend your life as a victim, resenting the fact that life is unfairly against you, or you can accept that sometimes life isn't fair, but by making particular choices yourself, you can reduce the impact on yourself.

Haven't RTFT but OP you seem to be making any excuse possible.

Little things like this are the reasons the NHS is skint, £1bn a year is wasted a year due to missed NHS appointments, imagine everyone though it's okay if they just didn't turn up/didn't cancel?

If you'd just kept going and turned up - even later that 15mins late - and explained about the accident they may well have seen you, or at least not sent the letter. My surgery are fairly understanding if they know why you are late but they can't read minds.

You are making excuse after excuse, and actually your excuses are all the same.

I think that you simply didn't bother to call the surgery after you missed the appointment and are now narked that they have given you this warning. They aren't telepathic. If you had called at all then the slot could well have been re-allocated to someone else who needed it, or others could have been seen earlier and that would have given you more time to get there.

Last week I realised that due to circumstances beyond my control I would be late for an appointment at our local community hospital. I called them and was able to reschedule for half an hour later than originally planned. Other people were seen first and I was seen when I managed to get there.

It isn't rocket science. I think the warning is perfectly reasonable.

Good, waste of NHS resources and I'm glad they are clamping down.

Manners dictate you should have at least called, even if you were past the hour mark. Not turning up was plain rude.

I may be spoiled because i'm in London where my GP catchment is fairly small, but a bus to a GP surgery where you are that late that you totally miss the appointment seems a bit strange to me... again, I might be having London blinkers but in 20 years and 4 surgeries I have never been further than 20 minute walk from the actual surgery...

People are clearly being stupid,please point out where I said I was driving?! I have a phone I don't have credit to make a call, when I told my sister I missed the appointment she suggested going pharmacy!! I used the wifi outside as loads of places have wifi, please read!

I moved to this area, I have a surgery which is closer but when I tried to sign up they told me that I had to go to a different surgery to sign up as they are just a branch of that surgery apparently, and the other surgery is further than the one I'm already at so just didn't bother moving surgeries as mine still covers my area.

None of that matters. Its not the point.

So why couldn't your ask your sister to ring them?

You could have called em route, it wouldn't have cost £5.

^^ it's £5 minimum top up. I had no credit.

@TinyTear

Yeah you are a bit city/townyfied!

I live 5 miles from my surgery. (Rural area.)

Although when I lived in cities and towns I was never more than 20-30 mins walk (5 mins drive!)

Shes abroad I already stated that.

So you didn't bother moving surgeries and gave yourself more work to travel to the old one

Can you see how some of this is your fault?

The choices open to you were.

1. Continue to appointment, apologise, explain and see what they could do.

1. Abandon appointment but make sure you at the earliest opportunity you exercised basic good manners and called and apologised so they knew you were unlikely to become a serial offender.

1. Continue with your day. Disregard the appointment entirely and days later when called on your bad organisation/manners post on mumsnet.

Stop making excuses. Your actions where rude. Accept that and move on and learn from it!

Look. Whatever happened on this day is irrelevant. Warning or not, you missed the appointment.
You got a letter saying that if you missed it AGAIN, then there would be consequences.
It's a warning, not a penalty. Nothing has happened at this time
They are perfectly reasonable to penalise those who miss more than one appointment.

Just try to make sure you don't miss another one, or that you can either warn them or show up eventually next time.