To think this is partly why the NHS is in such a state?

[QuestionableMouse]

A friend has an outpatients appointment today for a fracture. Unfortunately she had an accident over the weekend and is in hospital. I'm ringing because she has no contact with her family and lives alone, and due to the nature of her injury she's not able to to do it herself.

I've been trying all morning to rearrange her a or at least get in touch with the team but I've genuinely rang 20+ times just to get an answer phone message. Rang the hospital switchboard, rang the ward my friend is on to see if they can pass an message internally - all either just ringing out or going to voicemail.

Not bashing the NHS but with the pressure on appointments it's really frustrating to be in this situation of not being able to speak to someone!

It's been so bad for so long - 10 years ago I was readmitted a week after ds2 was born.

I was still getting community midwife visits so I told them that she needed to be contacted to avoid a wasted trip. I told them at my initial assessment and then again on the ward. Did they? Did they heck.

She tried 3 times before finally getting my dh when he got back home.

I received a threatening "FINAL REMINDER BEFORE WE TAKE YOU OFF THE WAITING LIST" message last week. The number was engaged from 11.10am when I got the text to 8pm when it just rang and rang. I tried every 1-2 mins for 3 days before finally at 9.05am I got thru. She told me they had been busy so turned the phones off. Yep, after sending over 150 'final reminder' messages to patients, none of whom had received any previous reminder. She was rude and unpleasant on the phone and said "so tell PALS, it makes no difference to me" when I complained.

Assuming she is able to communicate she can ask the ward to contact fracture clinic. However clinics are often intentionally overbooked partly to allow for no-shows so one customer not showing up will be a) planned for and b) just mean the staff are more likely to get home/onto their next session on time. If she’s in the same hospital as the fracture clinic and the appointment is vital they will likely be able to arrange an in-patient orthopaedic review.

It’s crazy how inefficient the NHS is. Everyone always saying how under pressure they are, in my experience it’s a lot of standing around and wasteful processes. It wouldn’t be acceptable in the private sector at all. It would really benefit from a LEAN exercise.
Maybe you should send a fax, I believe they are still using them.

It’s awful. I got a letter telling me when to attend for my child’s immunisations. It was on a date I couldn’t manage so called to rearrange. She could cancel the appointment on the phone but not rearrange so I waited another 5 weeks for a new appointment letter. It came and it was for a date/time I couldn’t make. It went on and on

I had one similar to that. I was stuck in a traffic jam (due to an accident) on the way to a GP appointment at 2pm and I knew I wouldn't get there in time. Rang them from my mobile and was put on hold for ages, then an auto message that they were closed and would re-open at 2. Kept phoning, and from 2pm it was constantly engaged. I finally got there and they refused to see me because I was late for my appointment and I hadn't let them know. I tried explaining to the receptionist, but she practically laughed in my face when I asked if she could check and find out if I could still be seen that day. I wouldn't have minded so much but it was they who'd asked me to come in and see them about some test results in the first place.

My dad once got a letter from the hospital warning him that his referral would be cancelled after a missed appointment. He was in their critical care unit at the time and the appointment was with a consultant involved in his care. My mum had mentioned the appointment to the staff a few times but I don't think anyone bothered cancelling it. It's a good job he was back on a normal ward when the letter arrived. Imagine receiving that if we'd lost him?

If you want something done, Never ever leave a message. Chances are it won't be the right person and they won't pass it on. Even if it is the right person, they'll claim they never got it. They will still leave it as a DNA.

All my appts are by email with a link to cancel & rearrange. Does your friend have her phone with her? Has she checked her email or text messages?

I was due to see the community midwife a few years ago towards the end of my term. Thing is, baby arrived early and I was in hospital. I never did manage to get through on the phone to the midwives to tell them I was in hospital. They ended up phoning me to tell me I had missed my appointment.

Generally it’s down to the IT systems not being fit for purpose. It’s frustrating but they’ve probably overbooked the clinic so the appointment won’t be wasted. I find it difficult to get through to anyone nowadays, NHS or not. But the NHS doesn’t have decent patient records so we’re stuck with rubbish like this.

I don't think the NHS is in crisis because of this. I think this is a sign of the understaffed of the NHS?

Can she not let the nurse looking after her know she's supposed to have a fracture clinic appointment and they can get the ward clerk to book a porter? It must be common for someone to be an Inpatient and have a fracture clinic appointment

I was recently in a position where an adult family member for whom I am carer might have needed to cancel an outpatients appointment on a Saturday. The appointment was for 8.30am on a Monday morning.

The appointment booking/cancelling line wasn't manned over the weekend and had no answer machine, so you could not leave a message to say that you needed to cancel.

The phone line was not going to be manned again until 9.00am on Monday morning, which was half an hour after his appointment time.

So, once the appointment department had closed on Friday afternoon, there was no means of cancelling until 9.00am Monday morning - half an hour after the appointment time.

Fortunately, he was able to attend but if not, all he could have done was not attend and then ring later that morning to apologise.

These appointments are issued by paper letter with no links for a cancelling platform other than a phone number which has no message system in the evenings or over the weekend.

I kept trying because I've left messages on answering services before amf then got a Naughty Letter telling me off for not contacting them.

Finally got through twenty minutes before her appointment time and they're going to try to see her on the ward.

YABU to imply this is a cause of the problems, rather than a symptom.

This is what happens when services are deliberately ground down as the Tories have done to the NHS. More resources of all types go to just keeping the wheels from falling off, no resources are free for improvement or general chaos prevention.

I used to work for the NHS in a non clinical role and all day long would watch admin staff just ignore the ringing phones. Literally just completely ignore them. I hope this was a staff culture issue at the hospital I worked in but I fear not.

I needed to change my Outpatient appointment today, and went onto the hospital website to see if I could do it online. There was a form, and within an hour of completing it, a clerk called me to reschedule my appointment. I was so impressed.

That's horrendous.

I'm a ward clerk and majority of my time is answering the phone. Don't get me wrong it does get frustrating at times when I'm busy doing other stuff.

But the phone needs answering 💁🏻‍♀️

As usual it is area and hospital dependent. I can't believe, well I can, because it's what DH does for a living, how many hospitals still issue letters. All appointments can and should be done via text/email/NHS app. The technology is available, the hospital just has to make the effort to implement it.

Locally, I haven't done anything by letter for years. GP's are all on-line, they refer by email, copy me. You can choose and book on the NHS App, and do all the booking etc on there.

This is what happens when services are deliberately ground down as the Tories have done to the NHS. More resources of all types go to just keeping the wheels from falling off, no resources are free for improvement or general chaos prevention

You see, this is where this shit is just not true. Trusts have the money and the access to IT solutions. They just need to use it.

Daughter had an appointment with the optometrist

Couldn't make it,asked husband to rearrange it.- He rearranged it ( one and only time I asked him to do this)

I attend at the rearranged appointment, but apparently we don't have an appointment at that time. A different kid was booked similar surname and DOB? Not sure cos she she obviously wouldn't tell us.

But they wouldn't see her, and obviously the boy who was booked in didn't turn up.

It was just a check up and we were close to being discharged anyway. So I request her offer to rearrange and said we were happy with optician follow up.

A few weeks later we get a letter saying we had been discharged due to a DNA.

I also work in the NHS in a clinical role. Our admin refuse to do anything that’s ‘not their job.’

we tried to implement a system to speed up processes. They went to their union because we were ‘changing their job’ (union told them they were being unreasonable).

I’m a highly skilled and highly paid member if the clinical staff. I spent all day last Friday populating template reports because admin refused. This meant I had to print them all off and address all the envelopes. I mean it’s fine, but it’s a waste of my skill. We have a two year waiting list to sit in front of me.

it’s the same in schools. Popped into my daughters high school last week to literally drop an envelope on
the front desk. Front desk was on the phone, three admin stood up drinking tea and watching her on the phone. I had to wait for her to come off the phone to hand in the envelope. Zero initiative. And you can’t sack them.

My mother was summoned to a hospital appointment a while ago for a procedure relating to a condition that she did not have. She has health anxiety and was totally freaked out about this, assuming that it must mean that she did have that condition after all. Rang the GP who knew nothing about it, and advised her to contact the hospital. She tried and tried to get through to the number on the letter with no success. She eventually managed to get through to another number at the same hospital in the hope that they could put her through. They didn't, but they advised her that she did definitely need to attend the appointment that had been made for her.

So she dutifully attended, full of fear about this apparent new diagnosis. She waited for an extended period at the hospital because the appointments were running behind schedule. Then when she finally got in to see the doctor, they were puzzled and told her that the appointment had been made in error and that she didn't need to be there at all.

So, a whole lot of unnecessary stress for my mum and a wasted appointment that could have been used for someone who was genuinely in need of it! I don't blame any individual staff members for this ridiculous cock-up, it's an inevitable consequence of chronic underfunding.

You think it's bad now, wait until it's privatised in a few years and you'll realise what you had. All the people now who have lousy lifestyle choices, greed, smoking, vaping, drinking, laziness, will die young.

'You can't sack them'

Yes you can. You can manage people and sack them, in public sector and private sector organisations - I've done it. It's when teams get slack management (or mo management) and the managers aren't trained and supported that this sort of shite is rife (and I agree that it's shite). I remember temping in an NHS dept where the phones were constantly ringing and the admin was months behind, so the team had collectively decided to stop answering the phone and to pick up messages and ring people back twice a day instead, with thr idea that tgty wiukd concentrate on clearing the backlog. Result being that it was almost impossible for a patient to speak to a human being, every call was with a who ws already upset and the few permanent staff were even more disaffected. They spent most of their time training an endless stream of temps and complaining. Manager nowhere to be seen. That is all fixable but it takes effort and commitment from the manager.