The nhs is falling on its knees :(

[BrowHair95]

And I’m sick of chasing everything up!! This is more of a rant really.

I had a gynaecology appointment on 29th July. I was prescribed birth control which is really important for me to have following a sad but necessary abortion.

The gynaecologist told me to hand my prescription into the on-site pharmacy. They advised me this would be around an hour wait, which was a little frustrating but I made it work - I waited in the cafe.

After an hour I approached the pharmacy. Once they did, I was told “we don’t do that tablet here”.

To make matters even worse, I was told I could collect it from my GP “in about a week”. No set time or urgency, just very casual about it.

And lo and behold, here I am over THREE WEEKS later, with absolutely no prescription to collect at my GP.

I have sent two complaint emails with no responses.

I just called the hospital. I spoke to a rude lady who said that it’s not their fault, that it’s been lost and they don’t have the prescription anywhere. It’s not been communicated somehow and that they can’t prescribe pills, I need to do it through my GP. The hospital said they sent a letter to them.

I’ve just contacted the GP and they have absolutely no record of a letter!!

So I now have to spend my time AGAIN trying to contact the same lady to tell her this doesn’t exist.

How is this even happening?? Honestly I’m sick to death of it. I work 9-5 and having to spend time chasing things up that other people should be doing!

We have a fairly large pool of secretaries in our department and trust wide. We do have a decades old digital dictation system and I am sure there must be better out there that would be more efficient. I have visions from a previous post of secretaries with hair in buns, glasses on the end of the nose, short skirts, legs crossed, notebooks and pencils poised waiting for consultant speak😱. We have a few male secretaries so that might be a bit awkward.

However my experience of voice recognition is that it takes time to proofread what the person has dictated, make obvious changes and bearing in mind they won’t always be obvious. Then the document has to be checked by the dictator before being finalised. I will check with my colleague’s with teams using VR to see if it does save time ultimately. It is the way forward but needs to be right.

Someone needs to invent a way to digitally record a consultation and make that into some sort of correspondence to go wherever it needs to go without human input. That would save lots of time. A doctor mind reading app might work too.

… anything that stops me having to spend the majority of my day printing copious amounts of letters, stuffing them into envelopes and hoping that the mail person picks up our mail that day. Obviously this is only relevant if the letters have been produced in the first place.

Surely the doctor could press buttons on his PDA and that would be the consultation there, there'd be no need for letters, dictation or anything else. It would be on the system and the appropriate actions would automatically be taken, with relevant texts and emails sent to the customer automatically as reminders.

Surely - so why aren’t they do you think ?

It’s become evident on this thread that people aren’t aware of how antiquated NHS systems actually are.

Indeed. Even in the hospital I work in different departments have different systems and it’s not possible for us to see everything. Just one example is if a patient phones me asking about a radiology appointment, that is something I can’t see so I can’t help them. If they ever modernise it will be amazing but sadly it won’t be in my time.

@Wigwambam65 Yup this happens all the time.

I’ve received 6 phone calls from the same department over the last 3 weeks, asking me the same question - so clearly information is not even being documented/communicated within the same team! Frustrating.

Why don't they build a new system? How hard can it be?

It's interesting to see that in England (conservative government for 14 years, one year of labour, Scotland ( Scottish national party) Wales (labour) and Northern Ireland (noone for ages then sinn Fein) are all in dire straits. Long waiting times, exhausted and overworked staff.

Very hard, apparently. And very expensive. It would also be expensive and laborious to have to train thousands of staff how to use a new system. It’s not straightforward at all.

Fuck me. It hasn't been prescribed by the GP, it's been prescribed by the consultant. So until they receive the details from the hospital, they can't do anything. You cannot take a patient's word for anything - most tell you they want the little white pill etc

That isn't how it is. The GP practice has to wait for a letter or discharge summary.

Why are you referring to a GP as 'he'?

Then do it in the background. Keep the "front ends" that staff are familiar with and concentrate on integration and infrastructure in the background.

You can completely re-write software in a different programming language (to aim towards long term consistency and communication between different systems) but keep the "front end" functionality looking and feeling exactly the same as the old one. You can also convert data in one system into common format across all systems. That way you can work on a long term plan of integration.

It doesn't need to be one gigantic system. It can remain lots of different systems, but with built-in links to other systems for data transfer and visibility of one system to users of a different system once you have a common programming language and file/data format.

But the consultant/specialist could do that, tick a few boxes on a tablet, which could "ping" straight to the GP surgery. We really don't need all the antiquated "gentlemanly" kind of letters between them, i.e. "this delightful lady ..... " bollocks!

I work for the NHS and yes it is failing and failing us all…… hope u get/got sorted xxxx

Ours have only just started being able to do this. This week mine did it for a change of medication for a patient but didn’t put enough info regarding tapering off one medication at the same time as slowly starting another. Had to remedy it with a letter. Bollocks right enough.

I had a heart attack three months ago and haven’t seen a cardiologist since it happened. Chased and chased and now been told it’s at least 6 months wait to see them. I take other medication that makes a huge difference to my quality of life but they won’t let me have them until it’s been signed off by the cardiologist. I’m not coping at all, don’t know if I will still be here by then, feel totally abandoned and alone. Other trusts see patients within TWO WEEKS as standard. Guess which trust has the better survival rate and outcomes?

It has taken three months for me to get positive treatment for a very painful varicose ulcer on my ankle.I had to change my GP after a very arrogant receptionist told me to just go to a Walk in Centre after I had previously been to one and waited five hours to be given the wrong treatment.The new GP was much better, but after a couple of weeks of ulcer not healing decided I need referral to District Nurse clinic as they did not have the correct dressing due to their tight budget.I am getting correct dressing at District Nurses who have given me a hospital appointment , but supplied me with dressing to take in case the hospital did not have it!

@taxguru You should propose this to the NHS IT managers!

I recently needed urgent medical attention. It wasn't clear what was wrong with me, it could have been stroke or heart attack. An ambulance arrived about 15 minutes later. The tests they carried out were inconclusive but ruled out a heart attack. When we arrived at the hospital it was about 10 minutes before I was given a bed. Again I had a barrage of tests which concluded I had renal failure. I was started on a drip and given antibiotics. It was a few days in hospital before any sign of improvement was noticeable. I had an iron infusion and was allowed home that afternoon

Overall I was in for 8 days and have a follow up blood test and a procedure to see if there's any reason I'm so anaemic

I spent a day phoning around to find out about a supposedly emergency scan that after about 5 phone calls we discovered the hospital had sent the referral back to the GP 3 weeks looking for more details as to why I need the scan. Doctor finally called me back to be reminded of why I needed this scan!! Another 4 weeks on and still no scan appointment. I'll be phoning then all again on Monday.

I sometimes wonder whether it’s our GP/primary care system and the fact they operate as almost small businesses which may be part of the issue as they probably all operate slightly differently Someone told me that in Germany you can go straight to see a specialist. Not sure if that’s true or not.

These things would have happened in France, Germany, Australia etc, any developed country. It doesn’t need a system like the NHS to do this.