About how hospitals time appointments?

[Moanyoldcow]

I'm pregnant, have a high risk pregnancy and have been referred to Haematology for a number of reasons.

I was asked to attend 30 mins early for bloods and then to wait for my appointment. So 13:00 appointment. Had bloods at 12:35 and was waiting for appointment by 12:45, all checked in.

I wasn't seen until 14:00 and spent maybe 10 mins in a rushed appointment. I was given a prescription with the wrong name and since then (30 mins ago) the pharmacy has been trying to track the doctor down to rectify the problem.

The HCA looking after the waiting room said the clinic is always late. Is it just me, or does that not mean they need to change the way the clinic is organised? They clearly don't allocate enough time per patient but they compound the problems by cramming everyone in. It's a shambles. I've been at the hospital for well over 2 hours and spent only 15 mins in actual appointments.

I love the NHS and I know there are staffing issues but this is not acute care - this is scheduling.

AIBU to think they could avoid this a lot of the time?

And to be clear, yes extra doctors would make it possible, by there aren't any! Not enough employee or even trained.
(In hospitals and general practice)

I understand the philosophy behind making appointments at the same time to cover no-shows, but what really gets my goat is when the clinic doesn't even start at the appointment times, i.e. when the doctor/consultant/clinician isn't even there and patients aren't started to be seen until an hour or more after the patients have been sat there.

I recently had some tests at the local hospital. Booking letter (advice from and old one: never lose that) said 08:30. I booked in at 08:25 only to have the receptionist say "I don't know why they keep sending these out when they know nobody will be here till 09:30".

I was seen at 10:00 ....

Same here every hospital appointment I have had to with pregnancy has always been at least an hour wait but they do seem to be quick with scans but it's the waiting for the consultant appointment after that takes forever. Dh has a theory that they do it so you have to pay more for parking stingy bugger

But if you read my other posts @Familyof3or4, if they said that in the appointment letter, then I'd expect it. Nothing in the letter mentions that there'll be a long wait or how long I'd expect to be there. This is obviously a common occurrence and not a one-off.

I had to have a CT scan a while ago - letter explained how long I'd be there for, what I should do beforehand etc. Took a half day etc. All fine.

If the letter had said 'this is a very busy clinic, you are likely to be on site for 3 hours' then that's fine.

Also, like a PP said, if, when I'd booked in at 12.30, they said 'we're running late and you won't be seen until about 2pm' I'd have gone away, gone for a walk, gone back to the office (which is 5 mins from the hospital) etc. And the would've known then as the lady whose appointment was at 12.25 was still waiting just before I went in.

But no one tells you anything. So you just sit there like a lemon wondering if they've forgotten you.

DH is an orthopaedic consultant-his clinics are always overbooked by middle managers who have no respect for what he does or the patients they inconvenience-it's just a numbers game to them and he is always overrun with limited help from juniors and of course, all of the patients want to see him. And it's not that they are anticipating folk not to come either! DH is always trying to reduce numbers so he can see everyone at a reasonable time but is not allowed.

Maternity is always worse-but when do expect all those women to be seen if they don't force book clinic?

I work in this line of work, NHS clinics/appts etc.

All I can say is that we are doing our very best with what we have. A manager was in tears in the toilet today with the stress of it all. We are trying to provide a good safe service, to far too many people, in far too short time frames.

And most of you would be doing no different in our shows.

For example x clinic today runs twice a week with five slots. They were booked up weeks ago. Over the weekend three more people were referred by A&E, two phoned up with clinical issues which couldn't wait. The clinic needed to be overbooked. We can't magic another room, consultant and CNS out of nowhere on a different day. We can't bump people who already have appts, we cant turn A&E referrals away and we can't ignore patients with immediate clinical reasons to be seen.

So please tell me what your solution is? That's not a rhetorical question I really would like to know.

And why do you need a letter to tell you there may be a long wait? It's the NHS, what exactly did you expect?

At the end of the day you've just had god knows how much medical treatment, in a clean hospital by an expensive doctor supported by nurses and admin and you walked out the door with a bill which said ZERO.

The NHS is chronically underfunded. I don't think you have any idea. Our staff toilet seat broke last week in the ladies. Today we got a secondhand one from a condemned ward that looks about 30 years old. There's no stationery save for cheap weird paper and envelopes. Those staples in your letters? There's a chance I paid for those out of my wages and brought them to work. I work in an office with two broken windows, old sticky carpet and a door which randomly jams and you can't leave until someone lets you out.

But carry on moaning that your first class medical assistance was a whole fucking hour late.

@Kindoline - I honestly know that you are in a difficult position. I suppose it's more about communication rather than magicking up the space.

1. For me, it's not that it's was an unusually busy day - they HCA said that it's always like this. Is that's the case, surely a heads up on the letter would be a good idea? If I knew it was 3 hours then that's what I'd have allocated.

1. If they could tell you when you book in what the wait is like the again, you could make plans accordingly. Many people will be really local and can go home or back to work for the 90 mins you're running over etc.

1. Someone to keep you informed. No one said anything to me until I'd been there for nearly 90 minutes.

@Barbaradidit - did you once hear me say I was unhappy with my care or didn't understand that there are issues?

Your attitude is one I've thankfully not come across much in the NHS.

I haven't been rude, unpleasant about the staff or denigrated their efforts - you're the one spewing invective.

But why would we write that on the letter?

1, the clinic may not end up overbooked

2, telling patients they may have a long wait ends up with many more just not turning up or wandering in hrs after their appt as "you said it would be a ages"

It doesn't work like that

I also attend a haematology maternity clinic. There is a sign on the wall stating that waiting times are generally 2-3 hours and not to alert staff unless you have been waiting more than 3 hours. Last time my consultant wanted me in a specific clinic- there was no space so I was squeezed between two others. The consultant is sometimes called to labour ward, another consultant is there but they might be tied up with another case. I would far rather do all my waiting now and be seen immediately when I really need it. I think you need to realise that in the grand scheme of things, your time is the least important issue here. The NHS is there for people when they need urgent care, everyone else just needs to prepare themselves with something to read and a bottle of water!

Motherofsausage, no we probably can afford them. But good luck finding a manager to order you some. It's a case of do you really need to staple that letter? Why do you need staples? And it's been a long time since we ordered anything ourselves. Stationery goes to my managers manager to be ordered!

This kind of thing is happening more and more and the communication is getting poorer and poorer because the goverment is actively trying to bring the NHS to its knees so it can be sold off. They want people to be angry with it. They want people to think it can't manage on its budget, which they haven't increased at all despite saying they would.

They want to bundle it up into bite size pieces and sell it to the sharks. Setting NHS users against the staff, making the staff unhappy (as evidenced upthread) with the users and the users angry at the lack of organization is all part of it.

@Kindoline Proper funding. Long term funding. Sustainable funding, better paid staff, more staff and therefore enough time and space to take account of predictable emergencies. That's the solution.

I can understand clinics running late by the time they get to afternoons but morning clinics running late really rile me. I had surgery in June and ended up having to be at clinic 2 and 3 times a week for redressing until about 2 weeks ago, due to various issues. This was a nurse led clinic and was fairly on time, all the time.

I've also had to see my surgeon about every 2 weeks during this period. My appointments with him have been between 9am and 10.30am. Not once have I seen him turn up in clinic before 9.30am and once or twice it's been past 10am. This has a huge knock on effect and I've regularly not been seen until gone noon for a 10am appt. The first appt of the day is the 9am one ( for which Ive regularly not been called in until 10 or 10.30) and it's not acceptable to be turning up in clinic so late. Clinics are only held on his non surgery days btw and he does 2 clinics a week, Tuesday and Friday. If I've been unlucky enough to get the 2pm appt it can be gone 4pm due to the backlog from the morning.

We always ask how long we should expect to be at the clinic - means we can be organised and pleasantly surprised if quicker!

It is what it is. One party did promise a tax rise for the NHS in their manifesto. Joe public wouldn't have it.

Fzzpots, consultant could have been dealing with an emergency. Our consultants are regularly late because there is literally no parking. The hospital sold off a ton of it to make some extra money.

One consultant came running in 40 mins late, soaking wet and covered in mud because he had to leave his car on a muddy bank and climb a fence!

When I was pregnant I had to attend the consultant and diabetic joint clinic every fortnight where the wait was 2-4 hours. You get used to it. When you're pregnant nothing is your own, not your body, not your time, nothing. That's not a comment on the NHS by the way, the maternity care I received was fantastic from start to finish.

Barbaradidit your post is unnecessarily rude. The NHS is excellent as a model, not many people will question that. But while the OP did walk away with a 'ZERO' bill we all pay in heavily for the NHS via tax. So it's not a free service, and it's not unreasonable to be upset if you're kept waiting for several hours without any communication.

Not communicating lengthy waits leaves people in the awkward position of not wanting to pester the staff but worrying that they've been missed. Let alone the pressure of needing to get back to work, collect children from school etc.

Kindoline. This is EVERY clinic. He strolls in with a cup of coffee well past the clinic start time. At one point i was seeing him twice weekly due to complications and ive never yet seen him turn up on time. His surgery days are Mondays and Thursdays so yes on those days its almost inevitable he will over run if problems arise. I was one of those problems in one of my 2 surgeries with him as it was more complex once i was opened up. That's fine and although waiting for surgery when its over running is awful, its understandable.

He is on Rota for only the clinics, no surgery (it's not a field that deals with emergency sùrgery) Tues and Fri and I've yet to see him arrive less than 30 mins after the first appointment. That's unacceptable and has a massive knock on affect on the rest of the day's appointments. I've also overheard both receptionists and nurses complaining about his timekeeping and the added pressure that puts on other clinic staff.

Running late very now and again is just what happens. Turning up late for every clinic is just a massive waste of everyone's time and plain disrespectful.

Last appt I had was for a surgeon and he was waiting for my arrived due to having sat for 2 hours waiting on x rays.

It's so frustrating that the NHS is capable of wonderful treatment, free at the point of need, yet is bogged down by things like this. I agree with SusanTheGentle that proper long term funding is needed. It's not popular to say so anymore but the New Labour government's massive investment in the NHS is what we need again (and yes, not every decision was great, PFI etc).

fzpotts in that situation (individual staff member taking the piss) I would write a letter of complain setting out what you've heard and what you've said here and email it to the chief executive of the trust.

fzpotts please do write a letter. I'm sure that the clinic staff and other doctors would be delighted!

Our clinic appt times don't match the actual expected clinic run time. As someone mentioned above, our hospital brings in patients early so we're not kept waiting.

All patients (with the usual overbookings) are booked into a two and a half block but our clinic template is a three and a half block. Management know that all being well the last patient will have to wait at least 90 minutes. It is such a stupid idea - everyone gets irate, there's a backlog in XR and you spend half the time apologising even though you're actually running to time!! Can you tell it drives me nuts!!

See I'm not sure if saying it's busy would work. Mine isn't always running late, but they started getting people to come for bloods an hour before to stop the appointments running so late. This did help, but the last few times it's always been running an hour or so behind, and that's with a morning appointment
But the consultant I see is incredibly busy, I'm the only adult with my condition he sees and he spent 45 mins talking to me when I was diagnosed and panicking