AIBU ... to ask you to cancel your vax appointment if you don't need it

[BruceAndNosh]

Really frustrating!

I was volunteering at vax centre yesterday, all appointments.
Very busy as one vaccinator was off sick.

I was checking names off as people arrived among other duties.
The early appointments were boosters but late morning we had a couple of dozen 2nd doses booked in, and over half of them didn't turn up!
I assume that they a) forgot date of 2nd dose when they booked their 1st one 6 months before or b) had brought forward their 2nd dose and not cancelled the later appointment.

Yes, the booking system should be robust enough to avoid the latter option, but we know that it's working at full stretch.

Those slots could have been used by someone else.

You can’t cancel, it goes round in circles. The system updates though, eventually.

@PerkingFaintly

Although could you perhaps ask MNHQ to amend the thread title, eg to "To cancel your vax appointment if you're not able to attend"?

Because I initially thought it meant, "If you're not in the highest priority of need for the vax, please don't have one."

Or you could just read the actual initial post?

I apologise for any ambiguity...

Booked my booster then managed to get a walk in a week earlier. Really easy to cancel it on line. YANBU at all. It must be frustrating.

Dh and I were unable to change/cancel ours, as were lots of our friends and neighbours, it was discussed on the neighbourhood whatsapp.

The system will let you change the date though? Or at least it would when I had to change the date of my 2nd vaccine.

DH said it wouldn't let him change it at all, as he was currently isolating with covid.

@WorraLiberty

I'm not sure how this information wasn't filtered down to the OP

I work with loads of vaccine marshals and they're always moaning about how difficult the public find cancelling.

But at the moment, many centers are so busy that no-shows are giving them a bit of a breather to catch up.

The centre I have been volunteering at since February doesn't seem to have much of a no-show problem, which is maybe why this has never been brought to my attention. I was working at a different centre yesterday ( in response to the request for more Vols) and maybe the way appointments have been organised is very different?

Good job I didn't enable voting as it seems I am being unreasonable to hate seeing appointment going to waste!

I booked booster jabs for my 2 adult sons. Both have since managed to get them at walk ins which is great.
DS3 I managed to cancel his original booking, but when I came to cancer Ds2's original booking , it came up with a message saying "you do not need to book any more appointments ". Does this mean they have automatically cancelled the original ?

I tried to cancel my appointment the morning of my 4pm appointment. It told me to "log on tomorrow to cancel". I didn't bother.

I did read the initial post, and that's all fine - and it's really good you've raised the point.

But a lot of people don't click through: their takeaway is just the headline.

It's no biggie. You're a good egg, being doing a fantastic thing in volunteering. I just thought you might not want your thread title inadvertently to be slightly misleading, while Covid misinfo of all species is such a plague at the moment.

No worries though!

It is really marvellous that you are volunteering in all honest though, how do you know they didn’t try? I tried many times despite having very trying personal circumstances with my daughter v ill in hospital. In fact, I felt so stressed because I couldn’t cancel it.

Clearly though, most of the people on this thread had the same problem.

I have just read this and realised I needed to cancel my appointment as I had been to a walk in. I have been on the system and it won't allow me to do this....
How do you cancel?

I couldn't cancel/reschedule mine at my GP as the phones are off at weekends and it was too late to cancel online. I didn't turn up because I was ill.

I found it really easy to cancel. You just go on the vaccination part of the NHS website and click on manage my booking. I cancelled two so I could rebook for an earlier date.

When I booked mine I got timed out and told "that slot has now gone", so I booked another one. Within 5 minutes I had texts confirming both slots. Try as I might I couldn't cancel one of them, just kept getting sent round and round in circles online.

Also didn’t turn up for my first booster. No option to cancel and I’m very tech savvy. Systems fault tbh

@PerkingFaintly

I did read the initial post, and that's all fine - and it's really good you've raised the point.

But a lot of people don't click through: their takeaway is just the headline.

It's no biggie. You're a good egg, being doing a fantastic thing in volunteering. I just thought you might not want your thread title inadvertently to be slightly misleading, while Covid misinfo of all species is such a plague at the moment.

No worries though!

Sorry - I was quite narky to you earlier. My initial wording of thread title sounded much more anti vax so I thought I'd got it right but clearly still missed the mark

I must have been lucky as I cancelled mine and DH's via the online system really easily using the 'manage bookings' bit as we went to a walk in a week before our booked appointments. Once we'd had the booster I went on the website, put in our booking numbers and cancelled both. Got email confirmation for each.

YANBU. But the system doesn't let you cancel
On same day I believe? So if something comes up people are unable to cancel on the same day. Cars break down, people test positive, people get ill, people have kids amongst hundreds of other reasons people cannot go last minute . The system should allow same day cancellations.

You can't do it, I've tried, I got an earlier one via gp but the system just says "contact a local vaccination service" when I go into book or manage.

I even spoke to the local vaccination helpline people who were like no sorry can't help you cancel it. So I will look like a no show.

System would not let me cancel mine- it did not recognise the booking number the NHS had text and emailed me. It was a matter of hours before I was due to attend but luckily it was in a small pharmacy who answered the phone when i called and agreed to pass a message to the vaccination staff.

You are unreasonable for blaming patients for systemic NHS failures, yes.

You can cancel online. You go to manage booking. Then enter your details like NHS no. and dob. Then you can scroll down and the link says check other availability before cancelling. Then you scroll down and click cancel.

Ah Bruce, you've had a frustrating day.

[quote ShottaSheriff]@blueshiningsea you can cancel appts booked through the NhS site as I did it. You select manage booking and use the reference no they sent in the text message. I did it just this week after getting access to an earlier appt[/quote]
@BruceAndNosh, @ShottaSheriff Are you both entirely sure we are supposed to? I got a booster walk-in last week, after trying to bring forward my original end of Dec booking. Now the website tells me (correctly!) when I enter my details, that I have no need for any vaccinations for me. But agree if you are at vacs 1 or 2, system won’t automatically cancel you, but I think it does for booster.