To think this is NHS trying to fudge their stats?

[Everythingisannoyingme]

I don't really have justification to make this accusation and pretending to have made calls is highly unlikely.

I had a telephone consultation booked on a 2 week referral. Waited beside phone half an hour before and after as instructed. Called afterwards to see what happened and was told they called the number and got a message saying the number is unavailable.

Checked my phone is working and answer service turned on.

Frustrating.

You haven’t got a blocker on unrecognised numbers have you? I used to work for our local council and all our calls out came up as ‘unrecognised number’ on people’s phones and wouldn’t get through if they had a blocker in place. I used to get loads of complaints from people thinking we hadn’t called them back when we had and always turned out that they had a blocker set up. I imagine it might be similar for NHS.

They could have typed the number wrong. I’ve done this multiple times. I usually give it another couple if goes, but if you’re running behind you may just move on to the next. (I work for the nhs).

That would make more sense. I wouldn't normally jump to a suspicious conclusion. I have no idea, I wonder how I check.

Did you check they definitely have the right number for you? They might have tried calling an old number that’s on your records. Or your phone might be set to block unknown callers. It’s unlikely they’d be lying about calling you, you still need the appointment anyway so it just creates more work to have to reschedule.

I know, lying is unlikely, think I was more stressed than i realised as morning was a rush to be available and could have done with being at work. They had the right number, will investigate the blocking thing.

Also check they have the right number for you. The hospital where I work have the right contact details for me as a member of staff, but didn’t realise until the other day that the details for me as a patient are actually really out of date!

I am blocking spam calls, had no idea. Fixed it.
Now I just feel cross for the morning with no focus for my anger!
At least my angry vent on MN was useful thank you.

Hi, I am a clinician and appreciate it may be frustrating. While I can only answer for our service, we do call at least twice and we also check virtual consultation room just in case (even if it was booked as TC app). Even though we have individual extensions, when we ring patients the number gets re-routed through our switchboard and some of our patients have blocks for switchboard numbers (not sure if these were set by them, via a spam block apps or by their network provider) and we are unable to get through or leave the message.
We wouldn't just miss the appointment as it is a lot more work for us (we have to generate DNA letter, admin has to print it out and send it, we have to mark DNA on the system, try to find you an alternative appointment etc.) We also sometimes get pulled up on our DNA rates and our admin slots get cancelled if our DNA rate is high as it is deemed we have sufficient time to complete paperwork without allocated time using our DNA slots. Honestly, we are far happier if we get to speak to you.

That all makes sense @Catza

Same happened to me with a doctors appointment. They said they rang twice and couldn’t get through. I was at work and had my phone on loud and every meeting I went to I explained my phone may go off because of the appointment.

I eventually rung reception who said that I’d missed my chance and that was it and instead blamed phone signal. I had full signal throughout as I work in the middle of a city where there’s plenty of signal. I was so angry because I’d waited 3 weeks for the appointment.

It's frustrating. I was hoping to have this out of the way before Christmas.
Definitely my fault re spam block.

I have just called someone for work though and couldn't get through - and I sent a quick email and text and was speaking to him in two mins.

I had a physiotherapy appointment cancelled recently, but received no message telling me, so I turned up at hospital as expected. The receptionist swore blind she had left a voice message on my phone. I showed her that no incoming call had been received in my call log, never mind a voicemail.

The trainee receptionist then noticed that my number had an extra digit in it on their system.

No apology for making out I was fibbing.