To think there must be a better way of arranging NHS appointments than by letter?

[Feelingvawful]

Long story short I have just found out that I missed a hospital appointment on Friday afternoon.

Although it is my fault (and I feel so so so bad about it!), had the appointment not been arranged by a letter in the post I would not have missed it, or at least would have been able to call to rearrange to this week.

AIBU to think that in 2023 there is a better way for the NHS to arrange appointments than by letter? Surely a ‘copy’ of the letter could be texted or emailed if such contact details are given? 😬

It is ridiculous. We’ve had letters for appointments that are the next day or whatever. And then you can’t get through to change them! Luckily we’re pretty flexible and can usually make it, but some notice would be nice. I’m not surprised people don’t show up if they don’t even find out they have an appointment until the day before.

I had DS consultants secretary phone me late on a Thursday asking if I had an email address and could she send me instructions for the procedure he was having on Monday as she didn’t want to risk the post. Which is good because they needed to be done 3 days in advance and our post is not great. Chances are I wouldn’t have received them by Monday anyway, let alone by when I actually needed them.

being able to book your own appointment at a suitable time, or at least by told when it is by text/email and then reminder texts would make the whole system so much more efficient in my opinion. I’m glad some areas have it anyway, hope it’s rolled out everywhere soon. NHS must waste so much money on postage.

This has happened to me too.

Honestly it drives us up the wall. The Trust I work at is different for each dept. The children dept sends letters and a text reminder out a few days prior to appt. But other delta just get a letter.. if their lucky it will arrive before their appointment… if their not they won’t get one at all and then they get a letter to tell them they DNA for their appointment.. It would save so much time and money if they could email / text BUT not everyone consents to that and some people frequently change phone number and don’t update the hospital.

I also work for a private company (working on nhs patients) we have so many issues with the text messages they send out for appointments (go to wrong person, don’t get all the details on them).

im not sure of the answer of how to get people out their information and how to stop all the DNA’s 🤷🏻‍♀️

I wonder if they stick with it as so many services are used mostly by elderly people?

But yes, it seems nuts that missed appointments cost the NHS huge sums every year and probably quite a lot happen because letters go missing or people just don't open mail regularly - especially younger people who will, totally reasonably, assume they'll get a text or email alert. Plus they must spend loads on postage unnecessarily. I would understand leaving an opt-in for post for people who really need it, but text/email should be the norm .

We’re Scotland too (Ayrshire) and ours is horrendous! DH has been back and forth to the hospital for a few months due to an ongoing issue and has had appointment letters arriving 2 days after the appointment...with the actual letter dated the day before the appointment 🙄🙄🙄 surely that just a waste of everyone’s time?! At that late notice there should be a phonecall!

He as also turned to to appointments multiple times to find they’ve been cancelled and the letter hasn’t been sent in time to reach him.

An elderly relative was discharged from hospital with someone else’s discharge notes 🙄 containing all personal and medical details. These were also given to his new care team who then had to question all his medication, have a doctor come out to check everything over etc. Just such a waste of time and resources, as well as a data protection issue.

My stepson's letters keep being sent to the wrong address. Doesn't seem to matter how many times we update, it goes to the wrong place. Then we get referred to another department and it happens again.

Complete shambles of a system.

They cancelled his last appointment. But we didn't know until we arrived for it. Because they sent the cancellation letter to the old address (2 houses ago old), even though we'd already updated the address after we'd recovered the original appointment letter from the random person who had opened his post.

It's really poor data management and no doubt breaches GDPR.

We don't receive any texts or emails.

To add insult to injury, the letter we’ve recently received for an appointment for our daughter in December (for a referral made about 6 weeks ago) says ‘please arrive no more than 5 minutes before the appointment.’ Oh, sure - wait 10 months for an appointment but make sure you calibrate all the factors involved in your arrival time (such as trying to find a fucking parking space in our extortionate car park) down to the minute lest you inconvenience us with your presence an extra five minutes before the appointment time. FFS.

Also Scotland.

Had this nonsense happen loads when raising dd who has a disability.

We were getting told off for missed appointments when we weren't getting the letters for as long as a a week after the appointment!

I've recently been dx diabetic and got a loaf of appointments.

One consultant in particular phoned 3 times in the space of 4 mins around 9am ish one morning and then left a snotty voicemail! 1 I'm rarely awake at that time due to insomnia - which they know 2 as it happened that day I was in the loo! 3 even if that hadn't been the case if I were a working person in a 9-5 job or had primary aged kids that's exactly the time I'd have been starting work or dropping kids at school so imo a really stupid time to phone!

Then I phoned the number back (no number left on voicemail! He also didn't even say what hospital or what dept I had to google his name!) "This number does not take incoming calls"

Then I googled his secretaries number - it was around 10am and I got no answer just a garbled voicemail out of office one.

Went through hospital switchboard and eventually got a Secretary to speak to who was not the most helpful, I managed eventually to get her to take on board the insomnia.

Subsequently same consultant has sent letters for 3 appointments all between 9 and 9.30 am which even without the insomnia I don't drive and the public transport from me to the hospital wouldn't get me there in time.

A taxi would be over £30 which I cannot afford.

I've also since had several cancellations that make little sense followed by letters apparently reinstating the cancelled appointments...

It's an absolute Fucking mess!!!!

I have the first appointment tomorrow morning and I will be talking to him about all of this.

It's ridiculous!

It really is ridiculous. It’s almost mind-boggling how the NHS manages to come up with such eye-wateringly complex and inefficient systems for almost everything.

My appointments always come by email and text, as well as a letter. I think you can opt in to have that, as every time I have an appointment the receptionist always asks me if I'm receiving emails/texts for appointments. Maybe it's just my health board though?

As far as I can see NHS Scotland don’t have any apps/portals/websites to keep track of appointments on - but I could be wrong about that.

My DD has complex health needs, at one point she was involved with 7 different specialists across 3 NHS trusts also in Scotland. I received 3 letters all giving her 3 different appointments at 3 different hospitals on the same day. Trying to phone each department to try to reschedule was a full day on and off phones as no one seemed able to just reschedule an appointment by phone.

She also had a regular CAMHS appointment which was on a fixed day and time, while waiting for an appointment with a different part of the CAMHS service. A letter arrived with the name of a different practitioner which clashed with her fixed appointment so I phoned to reschedule it. Turn up for her usual appointment to find it had been cancelled, apparently the letter I received was to confirm her usual appointment and the practitioner name was different because her usual therapist wasn’t set up on the letter system yet. Of course no one thought to check that when I phoned - half a day off school and work, and no appointment.

It drives me mad that the most straightforward of admin processes are such a mess, taking huge amounts of my time to sort.