NHS are rubbish

[snowydayy]

I'm sat in the waiting room of the dentist (hospital dentist). My appointment was 20 minutes ago and no idea when I will be seen. This is standard from them as I'm here a lot for ongoing issues and this happens every time, last time it was 40 minutes waiting past my appt time.

It's now 9.30 and I need to get home to my desk for a 10am for a meeting (with my boss).

I know the NHS is broken but it is literally impacting on my work life every time I have an appt as they're constantly meaning I'm late for work meetings or have to rescheduled completely! To add the appt was originally well before work time at 8.30 but they cancelled it in error and couldn't get me back in until 9.10am.

YANBU - they need to get their act together?

YABU - I should just suck it up and wait and not make my work meeting?

In order to force clinicians to see as many patients as possible, patients are routinely booked into too short slots to deal with their actual issues, or their issues are more complex than first though so take more time than expected or, what is really common, is patients that waffle on far too long.
These people can end up taking up a ridiculous amount of time explaining what they had for tea every Wednesday for the last month or that their great aunt Ethel had exactly the same thing, although ‘she was only an aunt through marriage’ 🙄
The delays in any area of the nhs are rarely actually due to the HCP, who routinely miss out toilet breaks, tea breaks or even their lunch, and rarely get to leave on time, it’s generally down to the people they are seeing and the problems they are faced with.

At there IS a hospital dentist. Our hospital hasn’t got one.

If you were a hospital dentist, how would you make sure that every single patient is out within their alloted time?

You had a hospital dentist appointment at 9.10am and expected to be home at your desk for 10am??

Perhaps you should put your health before your work.It's more important.

Tell your boss that you have an appt 9-10 and you'll be back as soon as you can.

Slow Clap for the inflammatory title .

You have no clue if the patient before you needed extra time
Or an onward referral

Or if their computer system was down ( mine was playing up yesterday had to close down and it reset )

The NHS has it's issues .
I don;t work in Dental so I don't know what their issues are but I know some of my patients take much longer to get into the chair . They might be running late for legitimate reasons . They might need a GP letter . They might be worse than I anticipated .

We don't wear capes and we aren't SuperHeroes .
At the end of the day we do what we can.

There are some lazy arses too , you get that in every workplace .

You have ongoing issues - you are not the only one .
You are free to walk away .

Now I know the NHS has issues but YABU for thinking this is an NHS-specific issue, OP. Waiting to be seen at an appointment is universal the world over. It's not an NHS thing. In Japan, you don't pre-book, you just turn up and after you've booked in, you sit and wait until you are called. When I was pregnant in Ireland once I had to wait 4 hours to be seen and routinely had to wait 3 hours.

@YouFreakingFreaks ah, so it's all our own fault. That's us told then.

Why not? I live a 5 minute drive away.

I do.

This is one of many appointments regarding my health. Just so happens this one is dental related. There's only so much time I can take off work without it impacting negatively.

I think you're making this a me problem but it's really not.

I had to get attention to the post somehow.

Clinics over run maybe they had an emergency or maybe understaffed. Yabu to expect to be in and out and back at your work within an hour that's ridiculous.

@coffeeishot

I was one of the first appointments of the day so hardly likely to be the clinic that has overrun. The last appointment I had with this dentist he turned up for work 40 minutes late and my appointment was at 8.30.

It's not a one off I don't think I'm being unreasonable.

To add it's a very small hospital setting. The large hospital yes I could understand but this tiny one no. I would say they're ridiculous.

I would say you're redicilous! Unless you work in the NHS you have no idea!

Ah, just goading. Understood.

You've no idea what has gone on before your appointment. Patient transport for example if get people to appointments late. There are so many reasons - you are not the only patient they have. If you think nhs is that back - go private!

So unrealistic to expect to be back at work by 10am. You said yourself last time they were 40 mins behind

Any thread that criticises the NHS - no matter how justified - never goes well on MN.
We are supposed to just suck it up OP. Very few will think you are being reasonable as apparently it's entirely reasonable to attend appointments and not have a clue when you will be seen and when you will be free to go back to work.
TLDR: All NHS staff are overworked angels and you are unreasonable to add to their workload with your selfish demands to be seen at the appointment that's been made for you.

I remember sitting in the waiting area of our local breast clinic. They were running at least an hour behind and already into their lunch hour. This was 20yrs ago.
A very militant woman was kicking off big time, staff were trying to deal with her, she had taken the morning off but was due in to work at 2pm. The staff were trying to be helpful, they suggested she rebook if she couldn’t wait, not good enough. They offered to ask one of the registrars, who had finished, to see her, not good enough, her appointment was with the consultant.
Most of us sat there were muttering less helpful suggestions under our breath. In the end a lovely lady explained to her that a good number of people in the waiting room were waiting for results of biopsies or investigations that might be life changing. She then said that if those patients took a little more time she was quite happy to wait. She had been there and was eternally grateful that the consultant had given her the time she needed and not rushed her.
None of us know what the clinicians have had to deal with during that session. Patients are unpredictable, in dentistry they are particularly prone to fainting. Hospital dentists are more likely to be giving bad news so patients take time. I work in general dental practice and we know that certain patients are particularly difficult to treat so we make longer appointments. Hospital dentists may not be aware of this if it’s the first time they’ve seen a patient. Delays occur during extractions for lots of reasons and again it is often the more medically complex who are treated in a hospital setting so medical emergencies happen more often.
Twenty minutes is nothing. If you have no issue with the clinician rushing your appointment so they can catch up then they will be very grateful.

As an NHS doctor, I have to book annual leave for the session for appointments that fall on a work day (that's even the case for two week wait appointments). Perhaps booking annual leave for a morning/afternoon would make the morning less stressful for you if the clinic was running late for any of the many many reasons clinics often run late? Also, that way it makes it a bit easier if you ever need to be the appointment that overruns/need a procedure takes a bit longer than anticipated.

And did you create in the waiting room "to get attention" too ?

I've had occasions when a patient has collapsed and I need to call for an Ambulance /Paramedics .
Obviously to anyone waiting I will explain the situation and apologise for the delay . Some people do grumble until they see a couple of Paramedics escort a poorly person out .It is none of their business what is going on, I can only keep people informed with as much as I know .

Day-to-Day a patient who transfers , or is treated in a wheelchair , or has complicated foot and legwear to remove and put back - they will take longer .

And if someone outside kicks off ( often a relative , not the patient ) and they see someone coming out in a wheelchair , I think "I hope you are bloody ashamed of yourself" but I don;t say it . The evidence is there .

And sometimes the complainer will say "Oh I;m not having a go at you " but proceed to do just that because they think it will help me . (It doesn't) .There are channels to complain. They don't , they just go off thinking "Well I put my point across , I showed these NHS folk who's boss " or " well aren't I helpful , pointing out the flaws "

They should at least have the decency to explain and apologise when it’s running late.My last appointment at my GPs (obviously not with an actual gp) I actually saw the person I was supposed to see roll in 20 minutes late for my appointment ! Apparently they book appointments half an hour before anyone actually arrives on purpose.

No one as much as attempted an apology to me for making me wait - as though my time is less valuable than theirs.

Once when I was much younger and broke I had to leave a hospital without having had an appointment as I would have missed the start of my shift. Money was so tight that missing it would have meant I’d not be able to buy food that week. They seemed shocked 😳.

I don’t often come out to defend the NHS, but you’ve literally said in your OP that they are routinely late so why on earth did you book an appointment when you need to get back for a meeting 50 minutes later??

I will absolutely agree with you that it’s really annoying to have to wait so long for appointments though. Having just been pregnant and waiting over 2 hours for antenatal appointments, I do think that it’s crazy you have to take so much time out of your day for medical appointments. But YABU to not factor this into your day, if it was me I would use annual leave for routine stuff.

The NHS is fucked. I've worked in it for 45 years. It's never been this bad.
Private isn't much better. I've had two lots of private treatment out of complete desperation.
The first appointment was 4 hours late, no explanation whatsoever despite asking repeatedly what the delay was. And no apology when I did get in.
The 2nd time last week we'll over an hour late with no explanation.
I was tempted to go to A&E a few weeks ago after a bout of extreme pain I couldn't control but was told the wait was 12 hours. I decided I'd sooner die at home than on the floor in a waiting room. I wasn't dying but it felt like it.

I use annual leave for my appointments and there's a lot (haematology every 12 weeks just for a start)

I've waited 3hrs before in haematology. Was I a bit annoyed? Sure. But I'm aware it's in the MacMillan centre and they are going to take as much time as they need with people who have cancer

My gynae appointment was 45 mins late the other day, but then she spent an hour with me going through consent and options for my operation

It can be frustrating i get it, but I’ve always been ages at any hospital appointment. I always take a snack and a book or something to do with me. I think my last one was a new record my appointment was 2.40pm and I finally left the hospital at 5.40pm just in time to catch the last bus home! To be fair I had to wait for them to do a skin biopsy, then have my bloods done then go to the pharmacy but it was a long afternoon!