To find the habit of NHS medics and clinics running late reprehensible?

[NimbleRedScroller]

I get that sometimes delays happen due to emergencies, but more often than not, it feels like patients’ time just isn’t respected. Meanwhile, we’re constantly reminded that we must be on time or risk not being seen at all. No flexibility, no leeway.

What really grinds my gears is the lack of apology or acknowledgement. We’re just expected to sit and wait indefinitely, as if our time doesn’t matter. AIBU to think this double standard is unfair?

Pick not lick, that would be something else entirely

Actually there are some consultants that take the piss. Their NHS clinic is due to start at 9:00 but while in town they pop to the private hospital up the road to see a couple of patients then swan in at about 11 by which time patients are getting agitated due to the nature of their condition. Always manages to leave at 1pm though

Disagree entirely
IME of working for the NHS, clinics and appointments predominantly run behind due to patient requirements.
The allocated time slot is frequently insufficient to meet the patient's needs and the demands on the NHS are enormous.
Patients are never refused or turned away.
Thank you NHS

Where is your magic wand 🪄?

How self-centred do you have to be to miss the fact that if running late, doctors are spending MORE TIME THAN THEY SHOULD with patients in order to help them with their health. Wtf do YOU do that’s so important?

I think I’ve worked out why you’ve got high BP. You’re entitled.

We get 30 mins for new patients and 15 mins for follow-ups. This includes admin time - reading letters and results before they come in, and dictating letters before you forget the details after the appointment.
So, in that 15 mins I actually only get about 8 mins per patient.
My options

1. cut the number of patients I can see in any one clinic so that each patient gets more time (Just kidding, this isn't really an option- Trust higher-ups would not let me do this as waiting times would go up more and the Trust would get less money per clinic).
2. Immediately end an appointment of a complex or elderly patient when I have 3 - 4 mins left, even if there is more we need to tell eachother because "that's all we have time for folks"
3. leave my letters to the end and risk forgetting important information ( we are paper free so typing notes out will not be any quicker)
4. try to go as quickly as I can but accept that it takes as long as it takes but I am happy with the level of care my patients get, and so are they because they know they will be given the time they need.

I don't speak for anyone else. But I know which option I have chosen and I stand by my choice.

Every time I see people moan about waiting for a doctor I assume they've never had to wait for their telecoms provider to come and fix their phone or internet problem.

I've spent many many more hours waiting round for that than any doctor.

Ditto furniture delivery.....hours lost.

I passed out recently in a GP appointment.
I don't know how long I was out for, but I came around to at least 6 people in the room. I must have made a lot of people very late for their appointments, not just the ones for my original doctor, and I still feel embarrassed about it now.

Sorry but I don't buy that running an hour behind by 9am is purely because of delays in appointments that start at 8. But even if it is, they need to allocate more time to the appointments.

It's a level of delusion the whole way down the service about what's possible. Doctors being coerced into working longer hours to fit in too many appointments. Patients sitting around in clinics waiting for ages. Just schedule appointments for the amount of time they take and be realistic about it. If a doctor routinely has to work an hour or two of overtime then theres no reason to cram all the appointment times into the "standard" hours when everyone involved knows that wont be possible.

I'm not blaming any of the amazing hardworking individuals, but the system as a whole is fueled by optimism and goodwill and it hurts both the patients and the staff.

On one appointment to see my daughters paediatrician we had the first slot of the day. 5 minutes before the appointment there was a hum of panic amongst the nurses. I was asked who I was seeing. He was known for being super punctual so him not being their prior to the start of clinic had raised alarm bells
With the appointment 5 minutes late they had resolved the issue. Something came up that meant that day he wasn't able to be onsite and the appointment service was meant to have switched us all to online appointments. They set me up in his appointment room and phoned me there.
By the 11 o'clock appointments he's usually about 20 minutes behind. It sounds a lot but it doesn't take many 2-4 minute delays to have a knock on effect later in the clinic session. We have had short appointments and long appointments. If her treatment is effective it doesn't take long but when it hasn't been it's been a much longer discussion. The booking system assumes most will be simple continue as we are appointments and can be completed in the time frame and that it all averages out over the course of the clinic but depending on the clinic it's a naive assumption!

When I was working in clinics I was 100% on time for my day and every appointment I had control over. And if I knew a patient was early and the room was free, I'd start early.

But patients were frequently late, most of the time with no 'sorry' or even an explanation. Not just 5 minutes but half an hour or more.

And this was for often, important assessments and on the occasions where I said, sorry you're 30 minutes (or more) late and i'll do my best to get it all done now but if I can't because it also involves room bookings, i'm sorry you'll have to come back another day, some people were fine with it and other people were belligerent or even abusive.

We had an official policy that if someone was over 30 minutes late, they wouldn't be seen but I did my best to go ahead anyway as it needed to be done and I also didn;t think it was fair for reception staff to have to deal with angry people.

But still..some people seemed to think it was a bespoke service where they turn up roughly within an hour of the appointment time and get seen because...whatever reason they gave for being late was so important.

The NHS has many, many flaws but there is a large group of people who don't respect it as they're not fined or struck off the books for arseing about and not respecting professionals time.

And don't get me started on all the liars who say they didn't get a letter or they cancelled when they didn't.

I'm sure quite a few are using it as an excuse but I was nearly discharged from a service for not attending. It was only when my GP phoned them during one of my appointments to say she hadn't been receiving letters either they admitted that their administrator had left and most of the letters weren't being posted. I was on desperate need of that appointment too so it was frustrating to have had a delay for administration reasons.

For that to work... you need people to actually want to work in the NHS.
We have rolling adverts for clinical staff... can't fill them. Nobody is applying.

I'm sure some people genuinely don't receive letters or they arrive too late. That's happened to me.

But not all of the people who claim it.

And i'm also thinking specifically of a clinic I worked in which when I first worked there, we had an answer-machine service out of hours with a voicemail facility.

We removed it after about a year of me working there because of all the abuse left on voicemails.

I left that service 4 years after we removed the voicemail facility

And during those four years we frequently had people calling up and abusing staff after receiving a letter, saying no they did not DNA their appointment, they cancelled it by leaving a voicemail..

Except they didn;t as there was no voicemail facility anymore.