Hospital appointment

[JustAnotherDayInNorfolk]

Yesterday my partner tried to rebook an appointment with a dermatologist consultant for my son which was cancelled due to the last lot of strikes.
He was told he couldn't do it, my son had to do it as he was now 16.

As my partner spent the best part of an hour on the phone and still got nowhere how on earth do they expect my son to do it when he is st school?

AIBU to think that surely I can book an appointment and this system is absolutely crazy that a child has to book his own appointment!

Why has he been on the phone for an hour? He's already been told he can't rebook the appointment?

I don't quite understand, I had to reschedule a consultant derm appointment, I called the dept noted on my letter and the woman who answer rescheduled me. I had to wait another 6 weeks but them's the breaks.

Presumably he wasn't told that till he got through?

Really? I had no idea this was the case, haven’t had to deal with hospital in respect of our kids. Our GP surgery happily dealt with us until they were 18.

Honestly, Id just lie, i've done it for my mum before. Just get DH to say hes DS. They arent gonna call him a liar. Or you do it and put on a bit of a lower voice.

That's worrying. DD has SN and would have no clue how to deal with medical issues herself. I am already waiting for a DWP meeting to become her appointee. We have numerous hospital appointments so I'll need to speak to her pediatrician.

our GP surgery have been insisting on this since our ds turned 12!! Yep they expect 12 year olds to navigate the fucking joke of a booking system and to make autonomous decisions about their healthcare! We have had to resort to using private GPs 😡

I agree but they should have something in place for different circumstances. OP’s issue is that her child is at school. So the suggestion I made as aimed at that so that they can have a discussion about being able to help on their child’s behalf.

MissyB1 · Today 10:23
our GP surgery have been insisting on this since our ds turned 12!! Yep they expect 12 year olds to navigate the fucking joke of a booking system and to make autonomous decisions about their healthcare! We have had to resort to using private GPs “

Seriously?! Would definitely have challenged that with the local authority.

My DH was attempting to sort out neighbours internet and computer services, the neighbour is 88.

He tried to do it the ‘proper’ way and communicate with various services through the neighbour, this was not successful!

He then pretended he was the neighbour, on various calls and all was fine.

I think you will have to lie in order to book appointments ( tricky impersonations will need a bit of practice!)

It's a shitshow!
I've got a none verbal son 18 and even though I told the hospital receptionist he's none verbal she said he has to make an appointment himself 🤣. He's been at the same hospital for appointments since age 3 🤷‍♀️

Thanks for all your comments so far - I've been at work today so been unable to reply!
The reason an hour was wasted is because he was caught in the queuing system, being directed to call another department etc. Why couldn't my son make the call? If only there was someone to speak to at weekends or after 5.15 which is when he gets home from school!
Also I think you are missing the point of my AIBU - my partner was trying to reschedule an appointment for my son and not himself.
For all of you battling the system because your young adults have additional needs, I feel sorry that you have to waste your time with this - I found it mildly annoying but you deal with this shit constantly.
We only want a repeat prescription for his acne!
I am all for encouraging our offspring to be independent but we get annoyed with calling our GP surgery (how will he manage to speak to a gp when he is in lessons during that golden 25 minutes you can make an appointment morning and afternoon 🤷‍♀️)
Tomorrow is another day and we will try again!

You need to widen your circle ... my friends weren't all the same age as me .. so they were at different stages in their lives, some were retired, some were working part time, some didn't need to work. And don't assume all "older" people are too feeble to look after your DC. I had a wonderful network of friends in my village ... some of whom just liked taking my baby out in the buggy to give me a break.

Sorry - wrong thread please ignore my comment.

That's what I did last time, had to put DH on the phone!

Ridiculous.

We had this recently, DD is on medication that needed a review so they text my phone and asked us to call

I called and said my DD needs a medication review. She had turned 16 5 days before.
The desk dragon got all snotty and said "I'm not authorised to speak to you, and I will be making a note of this unauthorised call".

I told her the text was sent to my phone and that DD was at school.

When DD rang with me there, the same dragon offered phone call appointments during school hours and got very cross when DD said they couldn't do these until after 4pm.

Then the dragon demanded to do them on what was the first day of her exams and said DD was being difficult.

At that point, DD, having never had to call anything official before, put it on speakerphone, and said "look, speak to my mum, this is ridiculous, I'm not being awkward or difficult, I just can't make those times."

So she says "why can't you just be excused if your phone rings in school as it's medical "

DD said "because during the time you've said they may phone, I will be in the middle of my GCSE Media exam and I'm pretty sure it's against the rules to leave the exam to take a phone call, especially when phones and smart watches are banned from the exam hall, and sorry, I'm not willing to fail all my exams over a call about medication."

The woman hung up and later DD was sent an appointment time for half term instead.

My DH are generally well and fit, mentally and physically but we each separately verbally told the GP (Ed: too many adverbs!) that we were happy for him to share medical information with the other. It means that if he rings with the result of a test and the tested spouse is not available he can tell the other the result. It works for us (and we make appointments for each other. Actually it’s usually him making one for me because I was brought up not to bother the GP unless I was dying when it would be too late, so stillI dont bother him). I imagine there’s a note on each of our files somewhere. It helps, I suppose, that it’s a small country practice and he knows us both well, so he knows one of us isn’t forcing the other to reveal medical information to the other.