Can someone who works in the NHS explain this to me?

[stapletonsguitar]

I went for a scan a couple of months ago and something was seen on the MRI scan. The hospital where I went for the initial appointment sent me a letter telling me I was being referred to a specialist hospital because of what they’d found on the scan.

Haven’t heard anything since. Chasing both hospitals and they are blaming each other for the delay, claiming they haven’t received emails/scan results.

Is this how the NHS works? Admin people emailing each other and cocking it up? Haven’t they got a system where results and referrals get put in and they can see it all through my NHS number? If not it seems prehistoric. Am I going to have to go chasing these results myself 🤷🏼‍♀️

Yes.

Unfortunately different hospitals have different electronic patient records and can’t always see results and scans that were done in other hospitals. I agree that it’s ridiculous

There is no ‘one’ system that gives anyone or any service access to all your records. That idea was tried decades ago and eventually scrapped as it was deemed impossible to get all the hundreds of systems to interface with one another. However there should be effective modes of communication and people should not be left in limbo like this.
It mights be worth asking PALS at the hospital where you had the scan to look into what has gone amiss in your case.

Yes sorry, that’s how it works. One service does not necessarily have access to notes outside of their own trust, or sometimes even outside their department. Please keep making a fuss and it will get sorted. Agree Pals is a good idea.

Yes, in my bitter experience, you need to chase constantly and then double-check. I’ve been treated for cancer three times and it’s always a catalogue of mistakes, things not being done when you were told they would be, a lot of passing the buck etc. Do not rely on there being “a system” to take care of you.

Yes this is exactly how the NHS works. Even different departments of the same hospital can sometimes use different systems. It is infuriating, as a patient and as an NHS worker!

Good luck chasing them. I once had to drive 20 miles to cancel appointment, as all the phone numbers went no-where.

Sadly, yes. Contact PALS in both hospitals to chase this up.

And if you ever move house, you will personally have to email every single person in every single department in every single hospital you have ever dealt with.

You cannot update your address on the app, nor can you expect one department to tell others anything.

The system is broken.

Jeez, I’ve not needed hospital treatment for years, this sounds like it’s going to get stressful 🤦‍♀️

Have you spoken to your GP op?

Well not since I went for the initial appt. I have to admit, once I’d seen the GP (very quick appointment) I got an MRI within days and also saw a consultant at the first hospital within a week, so I had high hopes…

Yes. Make a complaint to make one of them to take action.

I had issues in pregnancy being seen at nearest hospital in a different trust to my GP. GP is now monitoring the recovery but without any of the documentation about what happened in pregnancy. I am under services of another speciality in a third trust. I have had blood and other tests under all three trusts over the last 12 months but everyone can only see what they requested and relying on me to relay the results between them. I literally sit with my GP notes open with my consultant and read out the results to her. In pregnancy she did work really well though with my Obstetrician and they were in regular email contact with one another even over weekends to ensure they both knew what was going on with my care but it's not typical.

My FIL had his cancer diagnosis delayed as the scan results were posted to the locum doctor that had ordered the test at his GP surgery who then moved on. No one at the practice were opening any of the post addressed to this Dr.

Yes. It’s ridiculous. Our images are stored on a regional system. It includes about 8 hospital trusts of various sizes and we can all see scans at all of these hospitals by just logging in and searching. It does not include our closest teaching hospital which is the tertiary centre that most of our patients would be referred to if they needed something that we don’t do. It’s a geographic boundary. It means the images transfer team have to receive a request from the tertiary centre and transfer the images onto their system. They “can’t” do it if it isn’t requested. If they don’t get uploaded at the other end then they don’t appear (not everyone will know this - they will just think they haven’t been sent).

Just to add (I had wiped it from my brain)

If you are in a hospital ward and go to Intensive Care, the ICU has a separate system to the rest of the hospital (for patients security apparently), so when my husband was moved into ICU, my details were omitted and I wasn’t told he had been moved.

I only found out the next day when I went to the usual ward, saw the empty bed and was told ‘oh he’s in intensive care’ He was unconscious so couldn’t inform them.

I complained but got nowhere