The casecof the missing hospital appointment

I have an appointment!!!
Wed 24th February at 4.30.

I'm writing it down here as well as everywhere else, as I haven't had a letter yet.

Just word of mouth from the PALS lady.

Great you now have appointment...am in the same situation leaving messages on a sec's answerphone and never getting a call back...think i will contact PALS to see whether they can email direct to gynae/urology to chase up..

Well, I can recommend contacting them, 100 percent.

They are very easy to speak to, and on the ball, in terms of rounding up all the info so they have it to hand.

I was just coming on to say that there was probably a new appointment being arranged in the background.

In the department where I work as a medical secretary in NHSGGC we have nothing to do with making appointments. The booking team do that. We might sometimes sort out a return appointment but not often. No-one would be pretending you had an appointment and there will have been an element of human error either from the booking team (not printing the letter) or the post office. Also whoever told you you were on the list, should have been able to see that you had an appointment that day - odd.

Finally, there is a lot of sickness but again in our department those phones are always diverted so that they are answered. Once again every department/trust won’t be the same.

Can I add that my manager would take a report of calls not being answered very seriously and we would be in trouble. Maybe find out who the manager is and give them a call.

I had the problem of being sent an appointment and arriving to find it had been cancelled. No one told me. Most of my care has been done by me organising blood tests, sending my results to a secretary and having an email reply to advise medication changes. Graves has been a frightening and life changing experience and I've seen a consultant in person once. My GP knows very little about it.

I think you really need to push to get the care you need at the moment. It's hard but it is necessary as your health matters.

Best wishes

Apparently, the appointment I failed fo attend was one I wouldn't have been attending anyway.
It was just between consultants, so I have no idea why it was shown on my nhs app with a message to phone. (Unless I'm unwittingly a hospital consultant)

So, I think the issue was neatly sidestepped and smoothed over without anyone losing face.

I don't care now, because I am finally going to be seeing an actual person! Whoopee!

Hurray!!

How odd you got sent that appointment, though.
The appointments system does seem to be chaotic.

Well, the PALS lady told me about the appointment.
I will get a letter to confirm it.

I have emailed her to confirm the day and time she told me, and told her I am creating a paper trail.
It was almost 2 years ago I first went to my gp and said I felt poorly.

Great new MissAdventure ! but 2 years that is awful, isn't it.

Poor old NHS.
A df is paying £15k for a new knee next week, privately. She has hardly had to wait at all. It makes me sad. It's as if the work and campaigning of our predecessors in the past 100 years means nowt. Good health was the prerogative of those who could afford it.

Well, hopefully I'm on the home run now, but it has tried my patience, and my poor body.
I am housebound, can barely get around in my flat now.

My husband received a cancellation letter for an appointment he didn’t know he had. He has received I the not too distant past appointment letters, appointment letters saying if you haven’t heard by a certain date to call, sometimes the appointment letter has arrived after the date of the appointment. They never seem to believe that there communication hassle arrived or arrived late.

I expect the pandemic has made it all worse, trying to coordinate things, but that rude woman was the last straw, and the thought that I may have to start the whole process all over again.

I did get a text, an email and a letter on time advising me of an appointment with a Consultant last week, in Welsh and in English.
It asked me all the usual questions about Covid symptoms and advised me to get a PCR test if I had any symptoms, not to attend and to let them know immediately. They would re-arrange the appointment. Very efficient.
Then it said "Please be advised that this is a telephone appointment".

Callistemon21

I did get a text, an email and a letter on time advising me of an appointment with a Consultant last week, in Welsh and in English.
It asked me all the usual questions about Covid symptoms and advised me to get a PCR test if I had any symptoms, not to attend and to let them know immediately. They would re-arrange the appointment. Very efficient.
Then it said "Please be advised that this is a telephone appointment".

Well I'm lost for words!

What is going on?

I was offered a consultant appointment in an area 50 miles away. I accepted it but before it was due I had a call from a more local hospital saying my appointment could be there.

I phone initial hospital to cancel, thanking them and making sure I'd be going to the other hospital

I then received a letter saying I'd missed the appointment and the letter also gave me date and time of new appointment.

Once again I phone up, apologise and tell them that I would not be needing an appointment with them.

I got yet another appointment seeing as I'd missed the first two.

I didn't know what to say. Not the type to rage on the phone so I did make one call asking them to delete my details and then wrote them an email and a handwritten letter which seemed to do the trick.

Callistemon, Zoe why do these administrative horror stories not surprise me! There have been others too which defy belief.
Well done MissAdventure for not giving up the will to live and let's hope you at last get the treatment you urgently need.

One of my df, a retired nurse, was so incensed by the crazy system and her DH's long wait for a new hip that she wrote to the Health Secretary. MSP and had the system changed so that Edinburgh and Borders residents didn't have to travel to beyond Glasgow to attend 10 minute post op checkups. They still had to travel there for the operations, due to lack of theatre space here, but at least their GP could be trusted to sign them off afterwards. Small victory.

I've had the letter through today to inform me of the appointment.
Astoundingly fast work, considering I didnt phone until late yesterday morning.

THats brilliant news, you have it in writing thank goodness. What a relief.
I have had similar problems with a hospital appointment so can sympathise.
Hope all goes well fir you.

Our hospital operates the MyCare patient portal. Once registered you can view your appointment and clinical letters etc. and print them off if you want to.
As soon as the letter is written I get a text so that I can see it online. This hasn’t stopped mistakes though. I rang yesterday chasing an appointment letter that I’d been advised of a week previously to be told ‘sorry, we forgot to print it out, I’ll send it now’!

MissAdventure I am pleased that there is light at the end of your dark tunnel x

I have the nhs app which showed a refferal was overdue to be made, and asking me to phone the hospital, but I could never get a person to speak to.
Then, when "I" missed the appointment, the referral note disappeared from the app.

Thanks, Silverlining.
Hope the clinic is worth the wait.

Why are we still having telephone appointments now that restrictions are easing?

And, if it is because of Covid safety reasons that I had a telephone appointment with a registrar, why do I have to drive 20 miles to the hospital to pick up my medication from that department?

I have no idea.
My 2 nearest hospitals still have security guards on the doors, armed with masks and antibac.

My recent telephone appts have all been physical after two years of telephone ones.

However, my GP appts, including today's are still telephone ones.

It just seems ludicrous that I'm not allowed to go to the hospital for a consultation but have to go to the same department to fetch my medication because they won't post it or deliver it to our local surgery.