Do I have the right to know my mother's medical arrangements?

I work for the NHS, and I would leave a message on the patients personal phone number If it was urgent that I contact them, but I would leave the minimum of details.
I would not leave a message on a NoKs number.

You are losing the plot and sound very precious.I feel sorry for the surgery having to deal with you

If you are next of kin, then that is the number the hospital/doctor/dentist etc will contact. If you don’t want this, don’t give a landline number, only your mobile.

I would have reacted to this by assuming the hospital were concerned they had been unable to contact an elderly lady. Maybe she was lying on the floor injured, or ill.

As you were next of kin I think they did the correct thing by getting in touch with you. They had to leave some kind of message on the phone to ensure you would respond.

Your having POA has nothing to do with it.

Why would your mother give you POA unless she was happy for you to know her medical issues?

Sputnik

The confusion starts with POA: there are two distinct types - financial and medical or personal and each decision depends on whether the POA has been 'activated'. Activation of an existing legal POA arrangement is usually determined by Best Interest Assessment. A person who is apparently confused maybe assessed as not having mental capacity for decisions relating to financial matters but does have the capacity to choose who should manage this for them. A person is always assumed to have capacity to make decisions about their personal lives (eg. medical matters) unless proved otherwise for each particular decision. The lady in question must have chosen her daughter to in her best interests in financial matters but remains independent with personal care choices. Please Google Court of Protection for the legal position.

Yes, I know, which is why I was concerned. As I said in my OP, the POA is not really important to the situation- the hospital will not know about it and anyway it is not ‘active’.

This was not a reminder service - the message was left by a (named) receptionist working with the consultant. My mum had been told that she was being referred and the receptionist wanted to make an appointment.

When my mum didn’t answer immediately she called me instead, and left a message on my (landline) answerphone.

sarahelenwhitney I can’t tell the hospital about the POA for the reasons I have stated. My mum is perfectly sound of mind and I am not her carer. The hospital- far from being obligated to keep me informed - should not be doing so, as has been confirmed by people who work in the field of medical privacy.

I think this is going round in circles now .

Unfortunately, I think people today are overly concerned with their privacy. It makes for a very secretive society, in which normal neighbourly interactions are deemed suspicious, and liable to sinister misinterpretations.
I don't see a problem with the hospital contacting you about your mother's appointment, especially as the subject of it wasn't mentioned.

Doodle you are wasting your time I fear, as many are missing the point about confidentiality.

I wonder if some non dependent grandparents on here would want their NOK contacted about their medical appointments? I know I wouldn’t, even although they have POA for me if the need arises (which is actually quite irrelevant).

I tend to agree with luckygirl and bluebell. I dont see anything wrong, in fact I think this sort of thing can only help save lots of time by missed appointments.
I had call from local hospital last week as my ex is under the hospital and they couldn’t get hold of him for phone appointment and called me instead, as I’m still down as his next of kin, we split up 3 years ago.
I think NHS have enough to contend with at the moment.

Surely, as your mother gave the hospital your number, that was enough permission. Why else would she give it to them? Would you feel the same if your mother had a critical condition? Would you still have objected?

Greeneyedgirl. I think you are right. I have tried to answer people’s points out of politeness, but as so few appear to have read the thread I am repeating myself to the point where I must sound obsessed .

It is frustrating for me and must be boring for others, so I am leaving the discussion now. Thank you all for your input.

Why did the hospital have your number? Someone must have given your details for your Mother's records. Perhaps with you having POA your Mother infomed them. Surely the hospital was acting in your Mother's best interest.

There are all sorts of POA. Unless you are aware of it, the hospital wouldn’t know anything about that and even if they did, the POA may not relate to current health issues. So I don’t think that comes into it. I think they just had your NOK details somehow, and thought it was ok to contact you. In my view, it isn’t unless your mother is long term severely disabled or it is a matter of life and death. It annoys me that age seems to come into this. Would this have happened if the patient was in their thirties rather than their eighties? I think not. The appointment would have been regarded as confidential. I noticed when my mother was alive, this sort of thing happened in a lot of contexts. She suddenly became invisible and I was treated as if I ran her life for her. I don’t think it’s helpful for anyone concerned and shows a lack of respect for the elderly. I would hate it, if it was the other way round. I would make a comment to the hospital.

And Doodledog if you are still reading, I agree with your latter point too. I have also noted how few people appear to read the original post and question, and just go off on a tangent rather than reply!?

An interesting thread. My partner, who has just recently had an operation, receives many calls from the doctor’s surgery. They always ask to speak to him personally and if he’s not available they ask me to ask him to call “the doctor’s surgery”. It has happened to me on occasion. I wasn’t available and the surgery telephoned my home number to say I needed to see my GP to discuss the result of my blood tests. My partner passed on the message. As it happens, we both know each other’s medical issues so there is never a problem, but I suppose if we didn’t there could be. (I might not have wanted him to worry unnecessarily if everything was fine and might not have told him).

It reminds me of a time MANY years ago. I was 19, still living at home, and had been seeing my then boyfriend for several months. I made an appointment with my GP to see about taking the contraceptive pill. My mother and I have the same forename, although we use different versions of it. The surgery telephoned to re-arrange my appointment and asked to speak to me by using my formal forename and surname. My mother answered the ‘phone confirming that it was her and wondered why an appointment that she hadn’t made had been cancelled! She then twigged that the appointment was for me and starting asking me all sorts of questions - very embarrassing and awkward. Like Chewbaccy pointed out they should have asked other security questions like my date of birth etc. When my mother gave her date of birth the receptionist would have realised that she wasn’t speaking to me. What is she to say? Can you ask Freeandeasy to contact the surgery? My mother would still have known that I had made an appointment. Don’t know what the answer to this one is.

PS - I don’t think that leaving a message on an answer ‘phone is the right thing to do, as anyone could pick it up.

As said before, Doodlebug is not annoyed on her own behalf, but is concerned about her mum’s confidentiality. Also, as said before, POA and NOK are irrelevant.
In my opinion, the hospital receptionist ( not the GP surgery as some seemed to think) was being a wee bit hasty if the call was just to arrange an appointment , as surely a letter would have been sent if repeated attempts had been made?
My son is still registered at this address, and if the surgery call him on our landline, they just ask if he could call them ‘ to check something’.

Missadventure’s post reminded me of one of our ( lovely, but a bit forgetful) GPs who sent an elderly lady to the treatment room next door to get undressed ( this in the days before nurse chaperones were available), and decided to call the next patient. Of course, he forgot about Mrs G next door, carried on seeing patients, and it was only after he had left the surgery that she emerged to look for help!

If you are down on your mum's record as next of kin, there is no reason why they should not contact you if they can't get hold of her for whatever reason.
I assume that they first of all asked you for your mum's date of birth when you called back ?
As long as they did not discuss with you the details of the appointment or treatment etc , they have not broken any data protection protocol.

Doodledog whatever you do, you are obviously being a caring daughter and trying to to do the best by your elderly mother. Regarding the surgery's apparent gaff, I seem to remember there's a common sense clause in the GDP Regulations, and the surgery probably assumed (possibly wrongly) that your mother would not object, as you seem to be registered as NOK. Lashings of common sense are required where the elderly and potentially vulnerable are concerned! Regarding Lasting POA: I have them for myself, am an 'Attorney' (in the legal lingo) for my dad, and was Attorney for my late husband. The POA can be 'registered' with the Public Guardian immediately, and this is what our solicitor recommended, so no further steps need be taken to act under its powers. I did this for my own POAs. The difference this makes is that, although my daughters (Attorneys) do not, at the present time, act on my behalf, they could do so. It doesn't have to be that the person is not cognitively 'incompetent' under the Mental Capacity Act, it might be that they fall down and injure an ankle and can't get to the bank, or have to self-isolate, or something reversible like that, but that they need someone to act for them for the time in question. The Attorneys are always bound by a 'best interests' principle. I am happy for my daughters to know about my medical appointments. As I've had inflammatory bread cancer, I thought openness was the best policy. However, if you are a very private person, you might take a different P.O.V. - is now a good time to have a talk with your mother and ask whether she wants to register her POA(s), if she hasn't already, and just how much information she's happy to share with you. I get that you are probably a very private person yourself, but at 86, your mum might think differently. Sometimes the 'ancients' are much more realistic than we might think! Best wishes for your on-going care of your mother.

Doodledog, I think you are right, ethically at any rate. I am not sure what the law says.

I too can see the ghastly sort of things that could happen if a controlling spouse or parent received this sort of information.

In your place I would write to the hospital board about the matter, as you say the secretary didn't seem to think she had done anything wrong.

Until or unless we are committed to a mental asylum we have the right to keep hospital appointments etc. private.

It is splitting hairs to say, "but we only mentioned an appointment, not what it was for"

The fact that a hospital, the police or the Inland Revenue needs to contact us is between them and us, not our spouses, children or neighbours.

I'm not sure what the receptionist should have done ---- contacted her surgery perhaps, and got them to phone?
And its never a good idea to leave such messages on an answer machine - anyone could have picked it up, and someone could have easily deleted it by mistake (or on purpose).
I am in my 80s and am having treatment for a small personal problem that I prefer not to talk about, and I'd be furious is such a message was left on my daughter's phone as it would have resulted in my being quizzed mercilessly and having to explain intimate details to my own daughter.
It does need pointing out to the administrators of that department, politely and quietly of course.

As your mother is 86, it is possible they were also checking she was actually still alive. I worked as a temp in hospitals while a student and many missed appointments were because the patient was no longer with us.

Doodledog I confess that I haven’t read the whole thread but I think you’re quite right.
I agree with Evie’s post on the first page, if a message is left on a landline or even someone’s mobile there is no knowing who will access it and confidentiality would definitely be breached, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

I’ve lost count of the number of times the local community health centre has left messages on my landline, about people’s appointments and even their test results, as a result of a staff member dialling a wrong number, despite the fact they must have listened to our answerphone message clearly telling them who they were about to speak to.

It’s inexcusable and shouldn’t happen.

I worked for the NHS for over 19 years and the person that phoned you definitely broke confidentiality but telling you your mum had an appt. she should have never done that and you have the right to be annoyed

You could see it another way. My elderly neighbour was due at hospital for an appointment she had never missed any other but had had a fall at home. They couldn't get in touch with her when they tried to ring to see why she hadn't showed. So had rang her daughter who went round to check and found her on the floor where she had been all day. Her daughter lived a 1 hour drive away and due to the lady independance didn't normally go through to check on her because the old lady liked to go out on buses and would visit her family herself. Had the receptionist not contacted her daughter she could have been laid there for days or worse. She hasn't identified any appointments, so I don't see an issue. Expecially with someone if that age.

But MamaB247 this wasn't a situation where the patient was surprisingly absent.
It was just a reminder, in an unexpected phone call which she wasn't available to answer right away.
The receptionist was far too hasty, in this case.

I wonder if they immediately phone NOK, if the call isn't answered by a patient of 56 or 36.