NHS admin incompetence

[Nuttyal]

Hi everyone.
Just thought I would share this with you.

I had to make my first appointment recently with the dietician. The appointment was made by telephone following the main hospital contacting me by letter. I duly phoned the number given and made an appointment for today at 11:00am to take place in my local surgery. Details of the appointment were repeated back to ensure appointment details correct.

My OH and I presented ourselves at the appointed place today in plenty of time. I spoke to the surgery receptionist who gave me a glazed look and informed me that the dietician was not due at the surgery today and suggested I contact the hospital.

Went home and contacted hospital; told them that I had been waiting in surgery and that dietician had not turned up. They checked their records and told me that appointment had been made for another surgery on the other side of town more that TEN miles away.

No apology given for their incompetence...typical! Me not happy bunny!!

Have to wait now for next available appointment at end of month.

Morning well and truly wasted!!!!

Only saving grace is that appointment was not of great importance to me as I have already changed diet.

Anyone else suffered this sort of incompetence from NHS?

 

[margie]

Once when I went to a clinic where a couple who had spent 2 hours traveling to get there found that the appointment they were there for had been cancelled and rearranged. They hadn't received the letter and the admin staff didn't even seem prepared to ask whether the Dr would see them.

 

[Northerner]

I made the mistake of giving the NHS my mobile number shortly after diagnosis. My mobile is ancient (about 2001 vintage!) so it can't receive anything in the way of even slightly elaborate text messages - if it's greater than 40 chars then all I get is <DATA>, which of course is less than useless. Despite repeatedly telling them this they continue to text me!

 

[Natalie123]

Yep! I turned up to the DSN a few weeks back after getting a letter saying I had an appointment, I turned up at 8:30am and the DSN didn't know anything about it because the consultant had made the appointment and not bothered to tell her! I had to rearrange it for today

 

[DaisyDuke]

I turned up to the hospital for diabetes review and they had no knowledge of the appointment even though I had the appointment written on a card.They did manage to see me though even though they went on and on about it.

 

[Northerner]

I received a letter cancelling my annual review and informing me the clinic was closed a week after the appointment was due...🙄

 

[margie]

I once had two letters in the same day - one giving me an appointment and the second cancelling that appointment and rearranging it for later the same day ......

I rang and checked as it was so bizarre.

 

[elliebug]

not quite the same but i rang my gp today to get some more thyroxine and was told that i couldn't have any cos they didn't have a letter from the hosp with my newest dose on! surely if they have a letter saying i need it it doesn't matter so much if the dose is wrong?? (i know it does matter but its not like its a different drug if you get what i mean) so now, in the next 3 weeks, as well as moving house and working 4 shifts at work i have to either get hold of a letter (i don't even know who i saw in the clinic) or make an appointment to get some more thyroxine. AGH. sorry for rant, am very annoyed, still. 🙂

 

[Blythespirit]

I live in a tiny village with no Chemists so we have a Dispensary at the surgery. On average they get my repeat script wrong once every 2 months.

I had my 1st appointment with a Consultant on Monday this week. I arranged the appointment over the phone 4 weeks ago and never got the confirmation letter. On past experience I knew to phone before I set off to make sure they were actually expecting me.

I'm now waiting for an appointment to see the SDN....and waiting....and waiting. It's now 2 full months since I've been having BG's of between 25 and 32 and apart from being refered to the hospital on my own insistance nothing has been done about it. Well, to quote one of my GP's...it's only Diabetes! 😱 XXXXX

 

[elliebug]

oh dear, if only the people who actually use the NHS ran it! hope you get somewhere soon, maybe you need to be more annoying!!

 

[Blythespirit]

Lol. I'm learning to be annoying....my kids are teaching me! Heehee. I have now got a consultant sort of on my side. He made me feel a bit better about everything. It beggars belief the way some people get the sticky end of care from their docs though. You'd think it was their own money they were spending! XXXXXX

 

[RachelT]

Really, it's no better on the inside...

yes, and i work for the flaming organisation! I got accused by my GP of not turning up for a referal to the hospital because booked in over the telephone and never heard another thing from the consultant's office, i called back closer to the term to see if i could find out where to go for this appointment but they told me i was supposed to have turned up up a week earlier and now had to get re-referred by my GP. I work in the same flaming building as these people and they still never sent me details of the appointment!
HR is no better, i applied for a job a month or so ago, in the same department and hospital that i work in, just a slightly different job description...I sent in the application but didn't hear any more, so i assumed that i'd not been shortlisted. Then 4 days before the interview date, my colleague asked me if i was going... 4 ruddy days! When i rang human resources all they did was give me a time to turn up at and asked if i knew where i was going.....grrrrrr. Still, i can't complain, i got the job! I'm going to be taking drug histories and stuff on the wards and worrying all the patients with my personal experience of taking oral anti-diabetic drugs...😉

 

[Ellie Jones]

After a lot of hassel getting my appointment cancelled I had enough and decided to phone and give merry hell to get my appointment sorted etc...

I phoned the number on my letter I was left a bit speachless when the head heart consultant answered the phone😱

Now it wasn't bad enough that somebody had typed in the wrong departmental phone number on my letter, they had actually type in the consultants personal number that went straight to him and not through his secretary😱

He was a lovely chap, we had quite a natter and he gave me my consultant secretary number...

When I did eventually get my appointment with the Head pump consultant not only were they not there present at the hospital but in America ahhh, My medical records were in clinic, so I had to see her registrra, who I had to explain my diabetic history to about 18 years worth took over an hour to go through the whole lot, when I went on insulin, off insulin etc etc.. To track everything through my pregnancies, he even wrote my children's names down!

Apparently I am one of the very few people who have their childrens names in their medical notes!

 

[Northerner]

...Still, i can't complain, i got the job! I'm going to be taking drug histories and stuff on the wards and worrying all the patients with my personal experience of taking oral anti-diabetic drugs...😉

Congratulations on getting the job Rachel! 🙂

 

[Nuttyal]

Glad you got the job Rachel.

If you as a working member of the "Organisaton" had problems, then what chance have the rest of us got!!!

I suppose that we can laugh off the experience after the event, but it is so frustrating at the time when you have to organise time off work, rearrange other appointments, only to find that someone else's incompetence has really spoiled your day.

Ah well! here's waiting for the next farcical event!!!

 

[margie]

Congratulations on the job Rachel.

I have just remembered that my Mum nearly missed an operation. She had been sent home when they ran out of theatre time and told another date would be sent. She didn't receive one - instead my brother had a phone call from a friend who told him my Mum was on the lists for that day. Brother contacted Mum and it got sorted out.

 

[Liz!]

They are ridiculously over-worked, that's what's wrong i think. My aunt has a Consultant's secretary as a friend and she is off sick half the time due to stress... no-one fills in for her except in a very minimal way when she isn't there.

She told my aunt that the people who got the best deal were those who made a fuss, as their notes would be unearthed from the piles and soemthing done about it.

I'm very lucky as Bristol seems very well organised - i live in a vilage too and our surgery is the dispensary and my stuff is always present and correct.

 

[newbs]

Recently met with consultant at my local clinic and she advised me to see dietician so put me on the waiting list - received letter re the appointment but it is for a hospital more than 18 miles from where I live! There is a dietician at my local clinic so why send me an appointment for 18 miles away?! I'm guessing their waiting list is shorter but it just seems daft.

 

[AlisonM]

I have had dear Dr Idiot to contend with (huge ignorance about any form of diabetes and what little she did know was thirty years out of date) plus the fact that I had two sets of records which wasn't discovered until a couple of months ago. I've found out in the last few days that these two set of records have been in existence for over 45 years one of which may have been created by the RAF rather than the NHS! 😱 One set had me down as T2 the other as T1.5 and caused a great deal of confusion over treatment and appointments. Things are much clearer now they've been merged into one set. for instance, I had a benign growth removed from my hip in my early teens and spent a very exciting few weeks in hospital in the center of Belfast (explosions, fires, gunfire - it was like Beirut) in 1970 and again in 1972 with Rheumatic Fever, neither event was shown in the records the surgery got when I moved home. Dr I keeps commenting on bits she's found since the records were merged, I think she thought I was Walter Mitty, now she knows it's all true. One of the things she said early on which puzzled me was a comment about not having seen a doctor for around 10 years before I was Dxed - I wish! Turns out that missing ten years was in the other set of records.

The current complete set of records apparently makes it far easier to understand how I could be LADA instead of T2 and has made getting the correct treatment far easier but I'm still trying to piece together why a second set was created by the RAF. It must have been done during one of dad's postings, perhaps someone created a temporary file when my records didn't show up right away after one of our many moves. I may never solve the mystery. Either that or there really are two of me!