To think that if you cancel on the day with the NHS, you should be put to the bottom of the list?

[SaltAirAndTheRust]

Unless you have a good reason of course!

I’ve just started and I’m in my first week, in this week we’ve had multiple cancel due to nerves or just not turning up. Seeing the amount of work that gets them to this point, it’s staggering! I just can’t get my head around it

True - though DH spent a week on a ward with every day him being on the operating list - for a week he got kicked off as others came in and took priorty.

So I'd frankly want to see the stats about how frequent it is and how much with costing broken down - because there's so much blame everyone else with made up figures around.

Same here at a children’s hospital. We would even wait an hour in the queue and when we got to see the doctor it would be “Mr Xxxx isn’t here today so not much I (another doctor) can do so you will be sent another appointment.” FFS! This happened several times.

I was (thankfully temporarily) paralysed from the waist down a few months ago, the evening before I was due an appointment I've been fighting for for 3 years. I phoned first thing in the morning and the guy that answered absolutely bollocked me and went on a rant at me about going to the back of the queue. Guess that answered why the wait was so long for the appointment in the first place.

Ironically I was one floor directly above where I needed to be for the appointment but as I couldn't move that was it...

So how do you reply to the people on here who have had appointment letters either not arrive at all, or arrive after the date and time of the appointment, @SaltAirAndTheRust?

Hospitals get fined for cancelling on the dau and exceeding wait lists though. There’s so much that goes into getting these waits down. Patients get away with no consequences if they just don’t turn up

They should lodge a complaint with PALS so that it gets addressed? All I can do is vouch for my department where the first thing you do after booking is send the letter.

The problem is that for some departments in the NHS - you need to be at the ward or day case unit at 7am. If you wake up with S&D, sometimes it’s impossible to contact the hospital as the lines open at 9am.

That happened to my friend’s DM. She was scheduled to have a joint replacement surgery. She woke up at 3am feeling feverish and was sick. Her DF tried to ring the hospital and got the lines are closed recorded message. So my friend drove to the hospital and went to the place her DM was supposed to be. To inform the staff that DM is unable to have surgery. Friend’s DM got a call 2 days later to fit her in 6 days after

Has somebody told you that they get "fined"? I'm not sure what you mean

I remember getting the "can't change more than X times". I hadn't; it was the first time I'd rung to change it (for DS) after they had changed it about 4 times!!

Hospitals face a fine if they cancel on the day or let people go over their waiting lists?

Cancelling for nerves, is not an acceptable one, nope.
But... there are so many legit reasons: letter did not make it or just arrived a day before or on the day ( it happens OP, I have experienced it) and there is no time to take day off/ get to hospital, you are dead ( because the waits are long....), you already had the issue sorted ( because the waits are so long that the tests do not longer follow a logic order....), you have already being diagnosed with a major health issue derived from not being seeing earlier, you experience extreme bad mental health due to being left to deteriorate for months....

OP, please keep going strong. Really patients are put through the grinder these days. The system is letting everyone down big big big deal.

'While I admire your initiative and obvious good intentions, as a retired NHS manager I think I'd say you were not using your time as a band 7 clinician very well.'

To be honest, I don't disagree with you! But it was a case of sending out letters with pre-booked appointments and chasing those people who did not attend, or giving people a chance to book their own appointment and reducing the chances of them not attending, and having fewer people to chase overall

I do take your point that my good intentions were masking a problem with insufficient admin cover. All of my clinical colleagues did lots of admin, to try to avoid situations like letters arriving at patients homes several days after the appointment date, like loads of posters have mentioned on this thread. The NHS runs on this kind of above-and-beyond goodwill, but I agree that it's not always very well thought out or the best use of time. It's just constant firefighting, and trying to make so many situations a bit less shit for all involved

Of course there are genuine reasons - and I think the system needs to be better to avoid them. But it’s things like departments not having enough staff to make calls to check that people can still attend. The issue does fundamentally stem from underfunding, but misuse of NHS services is also an issue

According to your first post, you are in your first week there, I think it's a bit too soon for you to be an expert on the way things are done everywhere.

Yes - that's what I'm asking you.

Who fines them if they cancel on the day?

Everyone’s and expert once they’re through the door.

Never heard of these happening after over 35y of NHS work. I would be interested in where these fines are being implemented.

Though I am a little sceptical of a new, presumably junior member of staff knowing quite so much about the high level management workings of the NHS.

Well why chase? They obviously don't want the appointment and wont attend so seems a waste of time

Or look at it the other way, only been there a week and can see the high number of appointments, and ultimately resources, go to waste because people don’t or can’t get themselves there. I imagine that after time spent in the job it just becomes normal and accepted when really it is not acceptable really given how strapped for cash the NHS is.

'Well why chase? They obviously don't want the appointment and wont attend so seems a waste of time'

It was a children's service. We could have discharged them, but they would just end up being re-referred and the whole cycle starts again. We had to discharge some patients eventually for non response, but chasing in the short term did avoid some lengthy extra admin in the medium term

My mum has 'missed' about 5 NHS appointments over the last couple of years. 2 of those occurred when the appointment letter arrived after the appointment date - one was even dated after the appointment date! 1 was when the hospital transport had so many patients to collect that despite being collected at 7:30 for a 11:30 appointment, she didn't get to the hospital until 12:15 and on another occasion, the transport didn't turn up at all. On the final occasion, she received a letter cancelling the appointment and was given a new appointment time. Unfortunately, it seems nobody told the doctor that her appointment had been cancelled. She is 85 years old and doesn't use a smartphone, so no access to any apps. When she has asked for her appointment information to be texted, she is told it is not possible.

I’m in Wales. DD’s neurodivergence appts arrive by letter. Recently referred for a scan, appt for which arrived in the post. NHS Wales app only shows my personal data, not any appts.

The referrals may be through an online system, but I can’t see or rearrange any appts online.

Wow.

OP you’ll soon learn that the NHS, and admin staff in particular, are despised by Mumsnet on the whole. See above.

I have a chronic illness and have cancelled on the day before due to waking up in agonising pain and physically being unable to manoeuvre around my home - let alone make it out the door. I must assume a lot of people are in the same boat where the health conditions you’re being seen for prevents you from making the appointments. I will say they have got good in the sense that if you physically can’t come in, some places will allow a quick phone call to make up for it - so there’s no harm in asking for that instead of cancelling altogether.

Even things like with my child, my son is autistic and as we went to walk in down the road to the dentist he had a severe meltdown to the point of hysterical crying and laying on the floor and not moving - so I had to cancel.

It really isn’t a one size fits all and I can assure you most people have a reason for cancelling because we all wait months, or often years for an appointment- they’re usually highly anticipated. So to cancel, most people have genuine reasons for doing it instead of ‘not turning up’ like people try and make out it is

@Dr13Hadley not all, but most. The op is not saving lives they are literally typing and sending letters. It’s not that hard isn’t it? Yet people still mess the basics up.