Badger App giving me serious anxiety

[HoneyBunnii]

Hello, i was wondering if anyone was successful in going back to having everything done on paper rather than having to use the rubbish badgercare app? I miss having the appointments sent as letters and having the book..
Badger App has cancelled and rearranged my appointments without notifying me many times and whenever I call up to re book any cancelled appointments I find that they are cancelled AGAIN after around 30 mins!
I got passed around on the phone 4 times today just to rearrange the time for an ultrasound scan that they had cancelled and rearranged again and once i had the time sorted i checked my app and found it cancelled and just broke down into tears.

It is really affecting me as i had a miscarriage last time and now whenever I am looking forward to my scans or appointments i find them cancelled.
I am also disabled and have to attend with my husband and so have to arrange the appointments whenever he is off but because of this app it is making it impossible!

I feel like when we got appointments via letters the hospitals didnt cancel easily brcause they would have to call us but now after this app they just cancel and rebook whenever they like, knowing that they wont have to deal with an angry patient.

Has anyone been successful in changing back to the old way?
Sorry for any misspellings as i am writing this while my toddler is playing hairdresser with my hair at the same time 😖😫

Yes, I declined it at my booking appt and have Green Notes. Sonographer and Consultant were both really happy as they don't like it either, lol!!

@Bookworm12345 they didnt really give me an option when i went for my booking appointment. I have my midwife appointment tomorrow so i will tell her about my whole experience.. i hope they get rid of it altogether! I can not see whom it could possibly benefit with all the errors and last minute cancellations

My trust insists on Badger. I hate it. Can never find anything.

I expressed concern about it and my midwife told me that they have to have your consent. If you withdraw your consent then they'll have to revert back to green notes. They can't do anything without your consent.

It’s shit. I had a MC then fell pregnant again a few months later, and it kept trying to book me appointments related to the first pregnancy during the second.

@YallaYallaaa yeah same here and it was upsetting that i couldnt cancel the old pregnancy details myself and it kept booking new appointments for me and i was pregnant again so was confused which pregnancy these appointments were for..
It is a huge waste of money for the NHS tbh because nobody asked for an app and from what I figured everyone hates it🤷🏻‍♀️

@nocoolnamesleft i hope they dont keep pushing me to use the app i just cant take it anymore especially after what happened today with my new appoibtment being cancelled again within half an hour, i felt like banging my head against the wall!

Yes the constant changing of appointments is a nightmare, I never know which ones are the actual ones and they keep changing the times of them top, so frustrating when I have to put a leave of absence in for work and leave cover for my classes.
Mine also states different due date to the date I was told by the sonographer so I've got no idea what my due date actually is!
Also, they never actually post the results of any of my blood tests, so even though the midwife was able to see them, I've still got them showing as not published 4 weeks later

Well, i had my appointment today and asked if i could go back to the paper notes but the midwife said no 😫 badger app is the way going forward and they will be ended paper notes etc.
She also said the reason the appointments keep getting cancelled etc is because of the new systems that the hospitals are using and that once those are sorted then the app will not have problems.. however i dont trust her and think we will just have to deal with this rubbish app and the grief it brings with it 🤦‍♀️

With all due respect, I mean this kindly, you need to tell them that you no longer consent and you are withdrawing your consent.

What would happen if you said you no longer had a smartphone?

*to having your details on the app, I mean. What would happen if you switched over to a dumb phone and didn't have the capacity for the app? They have to have alternatives, otherwise it is forcing everyone to have a smart phone to access health care.

@Bookworm12345 trust me i told her straight up that i do not want the app because i am not good at using apps and not good at using the internet etc. (was willing to make up anything break free from the app!) But she was shaking her head and saying "i am really really sorry but now everything has moved over to the app and we advise you to get someone to help you use the app and if you cant then we can send you appointments by letter but thats it. The rest of the details etc will have to be recorded onto the app.
I felt so defeated in the end because i tried everything.
Its so unfair to force something like this on expectant mothers.. like we dont have enough to stress about already especially if you already have a toddler

@HoneyBunnii in that case, I would go to PALS or the Head of Midwives and tell them the issues you are having and that you're withdrawing consent immediately. It's not at all fair to you and should never be compulsory.

@YallaYallaaa well i told her that i cant use apps and internet, that was the best i could do.. i am a terrible liar so i wouldnt be able to pull off the "i dont have a smartphone" one it was difficult enough to try and convince her with what i had already told her 😆

@Bookworm12345 i might try that but i think it would still end with them telling me that my appointments would be sent by post but then the rest of the details would not be available for me to look at since it is mostly for the midwives and hospitals to look at anyway

Hello. Could you ask for the midwife's personal WORK mobile, and when you have an appointment, text her to confirm?

@HVPRN problem is I dont have just the one midwife though, i have different ones here in Lancashire. I dont recall ever seeing the same one twice when I was pregnant with DS even though they initially told me that one of them atleast would be there at the time of birth.. none of them were though and I had to give birth with the help of 2 midwives (one of them being a student which i had strictly said i do not want repeatedly to my other midwives) that I had never met before :/

Just seen you’re in Lancashire. My Trust (not Lancashire) has recently put Badgernet in. The problem you have is that if you don’t use the app (which you don’t have to), the system underneath is still BadgerNet - which is where there are having the teething problems - so the appt issues will still happenn whilst the systems beds in. The notes are for the GP/Midwive benefit, not the patient - and they can view these digitally now - hence why you don’t have the folder of paper notes anymore.

Definitely had no option to decline the Badger app in my area, but I absolutely hate it. The way results are/aren't published, and the fact that my midwives at least use it to leave important notes for me without actually contacting me in any other way -- it's unbelievable. I had to use it for my first pregnancy and there was still some personal care involved (phone calls etc), but this time around I've been shocked at the borderline negligence going on.

I saw this on active and just wanted to add my support that Badger is absolutely atrocious and I can't believe public funds are still being used on it after masses of negative feedback. I'd contact PALS as above (I had to resort to them in my last pregnancy and they had my issue apologised for and sorted within five hours!!), If nothing else it's another bit of evidence that this system is crap but hopefully as others have suggested you may be able to go back onto a booklet. Make it clear that the anxiety it causes and the accessibility issues associated with your needs for your appointments render it useless for you.

I've got nothing useful to add just sympathy to say this sounds horrendous. How on earth do they expect women to run their lives with work and childcare when they keep changing appointments so often?! This is totally worth a conversation with PALS. No wonder you're feeling dreadful about it, I have been looking forward for weeks to my 12 week scan.
In my area we still have paper notes thank goodness although I do see that the midwives are basically entering info on the computer and printing it off rather than writing in the provided spaces in the notes. Apparently it will all be online soon too.

Thanks everyone, will definitely contact PALS and see how it goes.. i doubt i have seen a single person that has praised this app at all. With such a high unsatisfactory rate this app definitely needs to be done away with.
I have been told that the appointment for my 20 week scan that is showing as "cancelled" on my app is still active and not really cancelled so i have been told to attend anyway. I told them to send me a letter through the post as proof because i can see myself turning up for my scan only to be told to go home because Badger App made another oopsie

Definitely contact PALS, it's not very inclusive to use an app with no other option there will be plenty of people who find it difficult and what about those will additional needs also, I'm sorry for your previous loss to you an another poster that is terrible that the app was getting confused with that and I think it's not good to have an app for such important information which could easily be wrong due to the app or information can be missed or misinterpreted, maternity services really need that personal touch like phone calls still as it's such an emotive and important time for women when proper care is essential, things can't afford to be missed or not picked up on due to an app

Luckily my trust where I work and am booked are all still on our paper notes (we never had national notes), but eventually will all be online although I don’t think badger. Different trusts use different online systems, and they don’t speak to each other. It’s a nightmare if we get a woman come to us booked elsewhere who use online notes, we have no access at all!!

Unfortunately OP it sounds like you may be at the trust where I work.

We no longer have access to any white booklets that we used previously - they are not in print - so we wouldn't be able to offer someone to go back to paper no matter how much we wanted to.

We adopted the badgernet system in 2021 and are just about getting to grips with it however the rest of the hospital went live with an online system three weeks ago. This as you can imagine has been extremely challenging to move an entire hospital trust from paper to online and something that has been years in the planning. This has had some affect on the maternity badgernet system as midwives get used to using the two systems together.

Feel free to make your feelings known to PALS, i am sorry you are not having a good experience, it's just unfortunate that this change has come into effect recently, hopefully in years to come it will improve but yes it is true that this is a period of transition.