NHS rule about being late?

[Ceci693]

So my son had a physio appointment at the local hospital yesterday - he’s been waiting about 12 weeks: he’s 17 so he went by himself - cycled down after school. He had 40 mins to get there. But he went in the wrong wntrance and anyway long story short he was 5 mins late. I believe him as he’s very exact about things! But receptionist wouldn’t let him through: she said if you were more than 1 minute late the appointment was cancelled . He tried to reason with her and explained he came
atraight from school etc but she was adamant and he had to leave. Is this a new thing in the nhs? Bearing in mind that appointments don’t run on time any time I’ve been called for one - which is fine of course. He was quite upset and now has to wait at least 4 weeks - the woman said he would hear something in 4 weeks. What do you think? Is it a thing? And I do believe him as he’s very responsible - and time conscious

Yeah I tend to agree. No one’s time is more important than someone else’s and being late is rude no matter the excuse.

That said, they should have tried to fit your son in.

I’m surprised they didn’t communicate their late policy.

Unfortunately your son was late and they have rules even if you don’t agree the issue isn’t that they won’t budge it’s that your son was late.

If you have been held up 2-3 times already, you can have a backlog of non-clinical work to do - note writing, exercise plans, referrals to send - because you of course leave this stuff til later if you’re running late so that your next patient isn’t waiting even longer while you sit writing notes. I’m saying that in this context if another patient is then late, which might add to this backlog, that is why they may then get turned away. I regularly end up staying late to get this work done because I don’t like to leave my patients waiting past their appointment time unless it’s totally unavoidable.

Im not defending what happened to the OPs son, I think it’s really stupid, and I would have seen him. I’m just trying to offer a perspective of what it’s like to run an outpatient clinic with 10-12 back to back patients and no breathing space for when things start later or take longer than expected - sometimes the pressure builds and then something unfair like this happens.

it also could have been admin staff 🤷🏼

This unfortunately is the reality if you have an unlucky day with lots of hold ups in your clinic.

no one ever thanks you for staying late to get things done on your own time. They just complain to PALS if your clinic runs late.

Except for the staff.

people should aim to arrive 5 minutes early, so they’re ready.

I’d write to PALS. While I understand they might need some kind of rule, 1 minute seems crazy. Was there anything in the appointment letter about this?

Well just would just have to arrive 5 minutes late as well. Or just move the time of the first appointment forward 5 minutes and then would be back to where they should be.

If you’re not 15 minutes early, you’re late

That's certainly the way I was brought up. And you always calculate some time for getting lost into your travel time to a new location.

But I find people who defend lateness are often pretty arrogant about protecting their time at someone else's expense.

Where is the respect for the NHS staff?

It's ridiculous. I've never had an appointment not run late. I had one for my DS at 8.30am last year, I thought surely we will get in on time for this one. Nope, half hour late. If they can't keep to their own appointment times, a late comer really isn't going to mess up the schedules. It's probably an easy way for them to catch up and get finished a bit earlier though!

So, did you want your son to have a rushed incomplete appointment that didn't assess him properly? Or did you want every patient after him to have to wait around?

Absolutely ridiculous. Please complain op, this jobsworth needs a bollocking.

Always amuses me how so many in the nhs have crap time management yet have such high expectations of patients.

I hate that people treat young people like this! Because they know they won’t advocate for themselves. I once got ripped a new bum hole on here for saying I went to the doctors with my 18 year old! But this is why I did because they haven’t acquired the skills to deal with lying, stick-up-their-arse receptionists on a power trip! Of course he shouldn’t have been late and that’s a life lesson. However, if he hadn’t been called in and they were running 5+ mins late with appts (as they almost always are) then of course they should still see him. I think she was lying. You could complain to PALS, from the angle that you are questioning the validity of her claim of anyone who is 1 minute late will have their appt cancelled, not from the point of view of being seen if you’re late because of course sometimes you won’t.

He was a minute late. I think his incomplete appointment could've accommodated the missing minute.

Call the manager. This is not acceptable. If they discharge him because of this he will have another long wait. Complain. It is someone being a jobsworth. I work in the NHS and these departments do not have this ruling.

In the OP it is stated that he admitted to being 5 minutes late. So it was probably later.