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?

[EccentricaGallumbits]

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.

YANBU
DS had an appointment for end of April - we were moving at the beginning of April so I tired 10 times to call the number and rearrange it. No answer and no answering machine, I hten tried my GP and the generalised appointments line and they told me there was no way they could pass on that information for me.

However I was assured that I would get another appointment via my new GP (who I registerd with as soon as we moved- fast forward 6 weeks and a snooty letter about missing appointment number 2 arrives - oddly they'd managed to forward this letter to my new address but NOT the letter giving us the date in the first place.

bloody well makes you want to scream!

when I was pregnant with DS2 in 2007, we had moved house the year before, I didn't get my 12 week scan appointment, so I rang and was told that the letter was sent to number 2, I live at a much higher double figure number. Apparently because we are a new build only 1,2,3,4,5 were registered under this postcode so they just sent it to one of those

Oh yes, it has occurred to me . I knew someone would pick up on that.

Yes, there are going to be cock ups when people make errors or are inefficient and disorganised. But sometimes the patient will have moved and not told anyone, sometimes they will have told someone but they didn't think to update the database (one of my bugbears). There are going to be times when post doesn't arrive. I've experienced it - I know I've posted letters to the correct address and the patient didn't receive it, or says they didn't.

But IME when we have tried to find out why a patient didn't turn up it has been far more common that the reason was because they decided they not longer needed to be seen, got cold feet, were avoiding the appointment or were too ill to get there. Or that they forgot the appointment or had a mix up at their end.

And that's no me making any assumptions or excuses, it's based on conversations with our patients and what they tell me, and IME missed appointments because of admin errors staff are less common that other reasons.

YANBU it happens A LOT!! I am a GP and see this ALL the time!
However - last month we had 150 DNA (did not arrives) thats a 150 bloody appointments - some nurse some dr some half hour specialised diabetic or asthma reviews!!
These appointments were booked by the patients some only a few days previous - it really gets my goat since people complain SOOOOO much about getting a drs appoinment! This morning someone rang for an appointment on the day and was given one 2 hours later, she didnt come
Sorry rant over OP YANBU !

I get that too. We get patients to ring to confirm their appointment - many will phone and accept the appointment but don't arrive on the day.

YANBU _ I recently saw the school nurse regarding my son, we were discussing the faact that he was no longer attending the paediatrician, i said it was because i'd hasd no more appointments she looked up her notes and showed me a long list of supposed DNAs

She got very snooty about it, despite the fact that i don't do missing appointments and clearly do give a shite about my son as i was there with her.

Make the parent look like real shit if it's missed childrens appointments.

DH is a dcotor and the outpatients 'operatives' drive him nuts. he once had a clinic where every appointment was double booked. When he told them to check his schedule every week and make sure there were no overbookings they sdaid it was his secretary's job

He gets requested quite a lot, so gets extra waiting List Initiative clinics. He gets paid extra for doing them, but they are often only 2/3 full. Utter waste of NHS money.

he also says that the NHS admin side is full of people who wouldn't last 2 minutes in a business and see the NHS as a job for life, with no need to do any work

ROFL @ OP

Not read whole thing but sure is all the usual.

I am pg and 3 times have turned up for doc appointment at hosp only to be told it has been rescheduled. "You must have had a letter". Um well no that's why I'm here

I've been trying to rearrange a hospital appt. for months. Every time I say "any day but Wednesdays."

Here, take a guess what day they continually make the appt. on?

Haven't read whole thread but as an ex-medical secretary I would say YANBU and YABU. There was plenty of incompetence, wasted time, wasted money, laziness, lameness and rudeness when I worked at [hospital name] and it did drive me absolutely insane. BUT there was also plenty of hard working, efficient people who bent over backwards to give patients what they needed.

I worked in a very busy paediatrics specialty whose patients frequently had crises of health and needed constant drug adjustments, emergency appts, referrals etc. I always did whatever I could to get these things sorted out, often against the, um, singular habits of my consultant, because I knew that I was dealing with understandably frantic parents. And like Surfermum, I also encountered problems from the patient's side as well as from hospital admin - addresses not updated, social services not informing us of care details, GP changes not notified...

Basically what I'm trying to say is that crap disorganised people exist in every walk of life but clearly the OP is not one of them so is right to be pissed off.

FWIW I also had a snotty phone call from a GP's receptionist once, saying that I had DNA'd two colposcopy appts and giving me a lecture on how cervical health was important. They had sent the letters to my old address despite me having updated my records some months previously.

dd2 goes to eye clinic 3 monthly. on the day of one appt she was chucking up, so i rang the 'cancellations' line and was told a new appt would be sent out. instead of a new appointment we got a 'you have now missed 2 appointments. if you still think you need to see the opth/ opt service, please fill in this form and return within 14 days and you will be sent another appointment. if we have not heard from you within 14 days we will assume you no longer need to access this service.'
i filled in the form and posted it back (shirtily). nada. zip. nothing. after two months i rang the appointments line and said, 'look, she has a squint that is supposed to be checked every 3 months - they were trialling a new prescription and we were supposed to go back after 6 weeks to see if it was helping, pleeeeeeeease can i get an appointment?' yes madam. in 3 months time.
so the trial px rumbles on into the 5th month. hopefully it's not making things worse, eh?

They have changed the hospital appointments procedure where I live.
Now, instead of just getting (or not) an appointment card through the post, you get a letter asking you to ring and make an appointment, then after you have arranged it they send you the card.

Seems a lot better to me, then you can make the appointment to suit you in the first place. No more messing around changing things.

The saga continues....

Rang appointments line. was very polite but to the point.

Was told that no, appointments lady could not make another appointment. DD has to be rereffered by the GP. I pointed out that this would mean waiting another 8 months or so before she gets seen again.

Appointment lady suggested phoning GP myself to get him to phone appointments lady then she might 'be able to do something'.

So I have.

I will be phoning both GP and appointments tomorrow to see if this has been done. If not I wll get cross.

That's daft, although I suppose the appointments clerk is working within the guidelines she's been given. Why don't you ring the Consultant's secretary? When I worked as a med sec I was able to slot people into clinics and use my discretion in cases like this.

God, it's such a patchwork isn't it? I had no power over appointments at all, other than that I was good friends with my consultant's clinic clerk so was able to sway her when I thought someone needed slotting in.