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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to suggest the reason why the NHS loses millions every year due to missed appointments is because the administration department is run by incompetent monkeys?

65 replies

EccentricaGallumbits · 01/06/2009 22:21

A letter today, copied to the GP stating that DD hasn't attended a hospital appointment in May.

Perhaps the reason she missed the appointment is because I wasn't informed of it.

Again.

this is the second time this year this has happened. This will be put in her notes and in her GP record and that is 2 much needed appointments we haven't been to because we knew nothing about them.

They are incompetent.

OP posts:
MillyR · 01/06/2009 23:13

Don't worry about what the GP will think! They know it is a typical hospital scam to cancel appts and then make out the patient didn't turn up. Or at least that is what my GP told my DH; he said it happened to people all the time.

Dh has been through every NHS scam, including the being wheeled out of A&E after 3 hours 50 mins, and put into back of broken down ambulance in the hospital car park for 3 hours, so that he was technically not waiting in A&E for more than the 4 hour limit.

I really need to get over it and not read these threads!

SparklyGothKat · 01/06/2009 23:15

The eye clinic is the worse for it here.. I have missed loads of Dd1's appointments because I never recieved the letter. Luckily our doctor knows we don't miss them unless something has gone wrong so rebooks for us

UndertheBoredwalk · 01/06/2009 23:24

Not a lot Nigella, something about things going missing in the post. Yeah right, there had been at that point I think 4 missed appointments, I seriously doubt royal mail lost 4 letters

scottishmummy · 01/06/2009 23:39

complain to team mgr,no appt letter received.state your grievance to them

JoandMax · 02/06/2009 09:51

That's very annoying, hope they manage to sort you out an appointment asap.

When I was pregnant with my DS my GP sent my notes to the midwife saying I'd had 2 terminations and this pregnancy was unplanned..... neither were true and I'd actually been in to see the GP 6 months previously to discuss coming off the pill, taking folic acid so quite how they thought that I have no idea!

Uriel · 02/06/2009 09:54

I went to see my GP recently. She asked me whether I was a smoker (no) as it said smoker on my records. They'd had some sort of computer update and things had gone wrong!

Surfermum · 02/06/2009 10:04

.

I'm neither a monkey not incompetent.

But joking aside, there are some really disorganised people working in the NHS but that isn't the only reason appointments are missed. IME (and that's nearly 30 years working in the NHS) patients simply not turning up for their appointment is far more common.

treedelivery · 02/06/2009 10:21

Also the IT has major issues. Of the op where I was, where erros occured, half were because of not having a computer system, half were because the computer system in existence was crap.

Hugely frustrating when EVERY scan a pregnant woman can have was run by a different system/diary.

Lancelottie · 02/06/2009 10:31

SparklyGothKat,
Can you say which eye clinic? It's just possible that this is something DH or I ought to know about (as problems don't get fixed unless someone knows what they are).

You'd be surprised how very NONstandard the software packages are for working out dates of things like bank holidays...

1dilemma · 02/06/2009 10:37

It's a common problem we miss so many appointments we never knew about, my GP has also failed to recognise my ds is my ds despite doing our 6 week check together, they recently managed to switch the fsamilies address back to an old one etc etc.

mind you I still find getting a GP appointment much harder

SparklyGothKat · 02/06/2009 10:45

Lancelottie I am not sure what you mean by something you and DH ought to know about? Do you work at an eye clinic?

silverfrog · 02/06/2009 10:49

YANBU.

I had a letter last week telling me dd2 has missed an appt with the paed.

Except, he moved the appt (3 times actually!), so in fact the date her appt was set for hasn't yet passed, and also, we moved out of the area 6 months ago, and informed the paed's office, so why they were expecting us to attend anyway is a mystery...

Lancelottie · 02/06/2009 10:54

Software. But yes, some of it is used in eye clinics for appointment letters. And yes, things can go wrong, especially if you aren't the only 'GothKat, S.' on the books, or someone cocks up the data entry. Maybe you could give me the clinic's initials (and I'll hope it's someone else's problem).

(Have you told the clinic this keeps happening, btw, as it does sound like they need to check why?)

SparklyGothKat · 02/06/2009 11:05

QE2 LL

Nancy66 · 02/06/2009 11:19

sometimes you have no choice but to be a no show - because you can never, ever, EVER get through on the phone.

Lancelottie · 02/06/2009 11:21

Ah. Not ours then (or not yet. Clearly they need to switch).

Seriously, though, tell them it keeps happening and ask them to check if they have someone with a similar name on their books.

laweaselmys · 02/06/2009 11:21

I've had this... but I've also frequently had different days and dates written on the appointment card (like tuesday the 2nd when tuesday is actually the 1st) I'll probably put that one down to overwork and tiredness though...

3rdandBird · 02/06/2009 11:26

I had a letter once telling me i had missed an appointment but the date for the appointment hadn't arrived yet

3rdandBird · 02/06/2009 11:36

Dp went to the hospital for an appointment a few weeks ago. He went in and it said to sign in your arrival at the main desk downstairs then to go straight upstairs and you will be called.

Dp did this, went and sat down in the empty waiting room and 15 minutes later was still sat there waiting. He could hear the two reception ladies for upstairs chatting about who's making the tea/general chit chat (or "twaddle" as dp puts it) and as no one else was waiting he went up to the desk. He asked why he hadn't been called yet etc and the reception lady gave him a sour look and asked if he had signed in in a really snotty voice.

When dp said he had signed in downstairs because that is what it said to do, she looks at him and says "Oh, sorry, i haven't checked the computer"

Dp being dp said her that she had time to chat to the other lady and think about making tea and coffee but hasn't checked the computer which is what she should be doing. Meanwhile he is sat waiting for 15 minutes, when he needs to get back to work, all because she isn't doing her job!

He was called in straight away.

Dp never was one to shy away...

southeastastra · 02/06/2009 11:38

same thing happened to my dad. he missed an appointment that never arrived.

LionstarBigPants · 02/06/2009 11:51

We have a really stupid system for vaccination appointments. They are made by a central service that we have no contact with. We kept getting appointments for lunchtime on Thursdays, a time I absolutely could not do. All I could do was ring surgery and cancel them, then a week or so later we'd get another one for exactly the same time and day of the week - aaargh. And we couldn't make appointments with the surgery directly, they had to come from this central service.

ProfYaffle · 02/06/2009 12:01

dh and I had the opposite. He got an appointment, was for major surgery, he arranged time off work, cancelled his annual train ticket etc we turned up, sat in the day room on the ward for 2hrs. Admin clerk came down to tell us op had been cancelled weeks ago but we hadn't been told

SparklyGothKat · 02/06/2009 12:22

Its a shock when you go to an appointment and you see DNA on the kids notes.. I always says 'er when was that then??'

I have told them LL that it keeps happening but they have changed to a new system last year and it messed up all the appointments (apparently)

catinthehat2 · 02/06/2009 12:33

Amazed at this assertion by Surfergirl:
"IME (and that's nearly 30 years working in the NHS) patients simply not turning up for their appointment is far more common."

Bluntly, has it occurred to you that they don't turn up because they didn't get their appointment cards?

I think there are too many NHS staff living in a dream world, drinking cups of tea and moaning about all those inconvenient patients out there.

I am disgusted by some of the awful tales on this thread.

KingRolo · 02/06/2009 12:53

I never got a letter about my 12 week scan so phoned up to be told it was the next day and a letter had been sent, but to a different house on the street. I couldn't get the day off work at such short notice. Made to feel it wss very much my fault. As I'd found I'd had a missed mc at my previous 12 week scan a few months earlier I'd thought they could be a little more thoughtful.

And now dd is here I never get letters for her imms and have had to make all the appointments myself. If presume that dd would have gone without if I had not sorted it myself.

I love the NHS but some aspects are (in the words of Suralan) a bladdy shambles.