Our 'Wonderful' NHS

You are correct. I’ve often said...if military medics ran the NHS it would be run smarter.
I’m speaking from experience. I worked in th NHS for 7 years in admin.....it was a total mess when I arrived, and insecure too. My view is...they need to have one system of administrative working and train all staff in this. This way all departments work in the same manner...with deference to their specialty. Why have admin for every unit. Now they are all working the same...have a pool.
There is such a lot of waste. Another example is the constant changing of trusts which involves change of letterheads on stationary and signage. There is so much waste.

argh! so much wastage, verging on corruption, with the money it all costs, let alone the anguish..

NHS it is the admin that is at fault every time, lets start saying that... the NHS admin is abysmal,, most all docs , nurses, etc, and the cleaning staff are good, all down to the ADMIN!

(rant over)

the software probably is there but the people using it are not accountable and it really feels as if they don't care.
No, Nonnie, the software often isn't there - my daughter works for the NHS in Admin. She is constantly slowed down in her job by slow and low-capability systems. It is very frustrating for staff like her who have maybe worked in the private sector and know that with greater investment in IT infrastructure, the NHS could work so much more efficiently and cost-effectively.

And please, don't anyone hint at bad workmen blaming their tools, or admin across the sector will implode with mass apoplexy!!

In fairness, my husband has had a huge number of hospital appointments across about half a dozen specialties in the last year and they have been both notified and dealt with efficiently and helpfully when there have been clashes.

I've had similar, I had to cancel a podiatry appt due to my father in law's funeral. I said I only live a minute away from hospital & can take a cancellation. Yet I've heard nothing not cos there are no cancellations but no way to match up waiting people with cancellations. I hope more funding will bring about an awareness of better use of resources.

We are so lucky to have the NHS, and medically speaking I have no complaints. But their admin errors take my breath away at times. They really do need shaking up.

I can’t fault our local GP and hospital. This week I had an appointment with the practice nurse who thought I should see a doctor. Appointment next morning , doctor referred me to eye clinic with a phone call, seen that afternoon. All was good, thank goodness, I have a history of optic neuritis, but to all involved this was superb, how the NHS should work.

Grammaretto
Lawyers and NHS may still use fax machines because they are more secure than a text message, faxes can't be hacked. Also you can't see an original signature over a text.

A few years ago one department my son visited still gave out cards if they booked the next appointment when you were there.
In due course a letter arrived changing his appointment so I crossed it through on the card and added the new one. Then again and again. I think we had about half a dozen changes. Eventually one came (which turned out to be the last one) the date seemed familiar and when I went to enter it on the card it was the original appointment back again!!! All that wasted effort and money!!

Another gripe is that we get a text message reminding us of an appointment (about a week ahead) but there has been no letter sent to us and no clue on the text whether the appointment is for me or my son (he has SN so I give them my number as I have to take him) or for which department!

Sadly, I have also experienced this kind of administration problem. I have friends who work in the administration departments of hospitals and I know how over-worked they are. It is inevitable that if there aren't enough staff to cope with the work-load then problems are going to arise. Hopefully they will get more funding and be able to increase staff levels, but I fear admin will be bottom of the food chain.

I had an appointment made for January 7th at a local hospital. Last week I had a letter telling me that the appointment had been cancelled - the tone of the letter suggested that I was the one who had cancelled it - and that I should make another appointment immediately. I went to website but was refused entry, so I could not rebook. After several attempts at using the phone where a recorded voice told me over and over again that the phone line was only for people who had no access to the internet I finally found out that the appointment had been changed to Dec 12th, but there was no time mentioned. I was advised to phone the hospital - phoned there 3 times being told each time that they were too busy to answer and was then cut off. Finally at 5.30 in the evening I joined a queue of 8 and got to speak to someone who told me the time of my appointment and was quite curt, with the same implication that this was all my fault. Two days later two letters arrived, one to tell me of the cancellation and another to tell me of the new appointment. The care is wonderful - the admin ghastly.

Having recently been in hospital for a kidney stone I feel that some of the admin is so repeated how many time’s I’d answered the same questions to different people was endless! Then the bp monitors were updated on screens and the obs were too. How many times I heard nurses saying this is supposed to save time all electronically dated. But they were spending more time inputting data than when they wrote it!

In this day and age with technology you would have through the computer would have flagged it up as a double appointment

Amagran Sat 23-Nov-19 09:49:46 well I did say probably but I think it is very sad that they haven't made this obvious provision. I do remember that the NHS was hacked but not because they were insecure, it was because some of them had failed to do the updates.

Camelotclub Sat 23-Nov-19 10:38:16 solicitors accept signed documents which are scanned and sent so I see no reason why the NHS can't.

Having worked for the NHS, can I say that you often find that not all the departments use the same system ! They may well not have access to the different department's appointment diaries. This assumption that your name is put into the computer and hey presto! all of your appointments throughout the hospital is very wrong .
In an ideal world, this would happen but unfortunately it often comes down to the budget that is set for the IT system may well mean that the total hospital system can only be done piece by piece. In fact, my local hospital is still using paper records that have to be sent from a warehouse.
Please, before you knock the NHS, go and spend a few years in a country that only has private healthcare and see the difference!

My husband got a letter today saying he never attended an appointment on the 5th November, he didn’t know he had an appointment on 5th November.

I attended a consultant’s appointment and she wanted to know why I didn’t attend an appointment made for me at another hospital. I never received an appointment she said it happens a lot.

There are so many more instances of administrative errors but it was ever thus.

Maybe we should look more closely at health provision in other countries - we are so quick to criticise and over-stretched under-resourced service and don't want our taxes increasing to pay for it. It would run a lot better if people used it correctly

I think that so many of our NHS shortcomings are caused by admin. errors. I have in the past received 3 letters from the hospital, giving me 3 different appointments for the same clinic, for the same consultant, for the same problem!

A small matter - perhaps - but it has irritated me so much. I have had absolutely wonderful treatment from the NHS over the past two years and I am extremely grateful. However; having received about ten letters for various appointments over that time, I noticed that each and every letter was two pages long, but the second page had simply 'Yours sincerely' and a name. The first page had a large enough space at the top to 'backspace' a couple of lines and therefore make the letter one page, thus reducing the cost of out patients letter printing by a half. Was any one interested? Of course not. How many letters are sent every day, and how much money could be saved over a year on printing alone?

Had treatment about 4 weeks after GPs appointment. Brilliant!!!

Trisher You were very lucky. I have waited 9 whole months for a physio appt for arthritis in my hip, and during the wait I have now developed arthritis elsewhere. I asked my GP if the physio would assess my whole body while I was there, and he said they might if I word it nicely!!!

I worked in NHS admin …..seems most of you blame admin for all the ills !!!! Well, we used a (then) good system of computing which linked each patient and their records to their GP and any follow up specialists. OUR PROBLEM was patients …who did not turn up for appointments. We would telephone them to see why they had not arrived ...sometimes to be told ;Oh, I had a chance to go to the seaside for the day;....and did you not think of calling to cancel ? Oh no, didn't think it was necessary !!!!!! I do agree as we all did, there were too many managers though ! Our hours were 9 - 5. but often we arrived at 8 or just after to ringing telephones which we would answer and deal with. Our lunch was 30 minutes ...not to be taken at the desk ...but often there is no option ….and we worked late (one night I was there until 10.00pm to get through urgent reports) ...and obviously, there was no overtime payment !) I am lucky now that I have a really good hospital and support services where I live …….I receive text messages reminding me of appts which I don't mind at all ! Just been for tests and had a further call when I got home asking me to go urgently for further tests two days next week ….that is, I think, extremely efficient ! How many of you have worked in the NHS and seen first hand what happens ????

Oopsminty
Trust you brought this to the attention of the relevant admin department and kept pushing until you received an explanation and what they intend doing about it.
Only by our persistence can we prevent these errors which is such wastage of NHS funds.

trisher despite the many failings of the NHS here, I must say that I received prompt physiotherapy treatment (ongoing) for a trauma injury I had earlier this year

ALANaV
What happened to 'failure to keep or cancel this appointment etc etc etc. '
Surely a notification when sending out an appointment be it by phone or letter of the implications should they fail to arrive .??

Do you see why the majority in my country don't want a single payer system? I hope you have better luck soon. Our insurance always needs work but we have a lot of choice. and it isn't all doom and gloom as you might think. I know the doctors, nurses, physician asistants and nirse practitioners are great in both our countries, but when you add more admin then things always get more complicated. I have seen so many changes in our kilotary healthcare system but the red tape is the worst.

oops, meant to say our insurance needs don't always work the best