Why does the NHS keep shooting itself in the foot.

It's no good being ill and unable to cope if you need to negotiate the NHS.

M0nica

DH rang the surgery this morning to discuss his 'urgent' appointment, the one the HF nurse wanted. They initially offered him one next Wednesday!!!!!!!!!! He repeated that theHF nurse said the choice was balanced between GP and A&E, and urgent and he got one at 12.30 today. The GP did all the tests and was reassuring.

I still have to find out who I have to ring at Addenbrookes to find out who to ring to check on this scan. It was a routine scan, everything done online and the scan taking place in a satellite scanning unit attached to a community hospital 20 miles from Addenbrookes. Oh for a good old fashined letter. With over 2 months between scan and appointment, I doubt there is anything dramatic to tell me.

Good do Monica, he stood his ground with the surgery & got a result!

Does this all waste more money than it saves?

Does seeing a nurse at the GP practice twice then ending up having to see a GP instead because the nurse gave you the wrong treatment save money?

mae13

I assume that 'MyChart' is some fancy incarnation of AI?

These hospital administration systems do love wasting funds on fancy digital doo-dahs. But they don't seem to work.

But they STILL insist on posting appointments using Royal Mail, which also doesn't work........you may as well give up before you start.

MyChart is a computer programme that works 'mechanically' All your test results are posted on your page, plus information about appointments etc. Certainly no AI involvement. Sometimes wonder if intelligence of any kind was involved it.

I recently had a message in MyChart to make an appointment for an X-ray, which my GP had requested. I spent 20 minutes going round in circles on MyChart until giving up and ringing to make the appointment instead. I got the impression that it’s not unusual. I’m with Addenbrooke’s too.

I assume that 'MyChart' is some fancy incarnation of AI?

These hospital administration systems do love wasting funds on fancy digital doo-dahs. But they don't seem to work.

But they STILL insist on posting appointments using Royal Mail, which also doesn't work........you may as well give up before you start.

I don't do NHS apps or try any other her apps at all. Once they have got you on any app. You life is never your own. Not to mention to the may poor security aspects of them.

The NHS had one a few years back which kept hundreds of thousands of NHS patients off it because it said their NHS number was invalid.

The Ring and Ride Transport for Greater Manchester Via App takes the biscuit for one of the world's worst app..After nearly a year it is still not working.

Could you not get in touch with the PALS, Patient And Liaison Service at the hospital your husband attends?

I have found them to be very helpful in the recent past with several problems

Sure you can get something sorted soon.

Good Luck
X
😻

M0nica Never 🥲 as a retired senior manager is all shite!

Contact PALS . Yes, that is probably the way forward.

Oh they went one further with me. My telephone appointment was on a Saturday at 1pm, like you I was told an hour either way. By 3pm I tried ringing them, no answer. I tried again at 3.30pm the last time at 15 minute intervals until 5pm,no answer.
First thing Monday morning I rang them to say I'd never received the call, could they sort it out and I made it clear how annoyed I was that my entire day had been taken up waiting for a call that never came.

On Wednesday my gp received a letter... Informing them I'd been discharged from the hospital because I didn't attend the appointment!
I rang PALS immediately and told them they'd better sort it out, the next day the hospital rang to book a face2face appointment the following week.

Contact PALS.

I waited 10 months to get a torn tendon and a ruptured tendon diagnosed so I could get the right treatment - included a useless x-ray and then months awaiting MRI results when someone finally agreed to a referral. Much of that time I was on crutches but still did quite a bit of further damage trying to walk on it after much encouragement because 'it's just a bit of osteoarthritis, not that bad on x-ray'. I'm very disappointed but it's not surprising as the NHS was deliberately run into the ground by the last few governments who saw that as the way to get the public to accept privatisation 😕

DH rang the surgery this morning to discuss his 'urgent' appointment, the one the HF nurse wanted. They initially offered him one next Wednesday!!!!!!!!!! He repeated that theHF nurse said the choice was balanced between GP and A&E, and urgent and he got one at 12.30 today. The GP did all the tests and was reassuring.

I still have to find out who I have to ring at Addenbrookes to find out who to ring to check on this scan. It was a routine scan, everything done online and the scan taking place in a satellite scanning unit attached to a community hospital 20 miles from Addenbrookes. Oh for a good old fashined letter. With over 2 months between scan and appointment, I doubt there is anything dramatic to tell me.

M0nica

DH suffers from heart failure. He has been more breathless recently, so we contacted the Heart Failure clinic. That was yesterday afternoon. 10.00am this morning the HF nurse arrived, assessed DH decided against hospital admission but said she would arrange an urgent GP visit. To ring the surgery if we hadn't heard from them by 3.00pm. We hadn't, so DH rang them or rather tried to ring them, after 20 minutes on hold he gave up.

DD reminded us that the surgery is on something called TotalTriage. All we needed to do was fill in a form. That was at about 7.00pm. Then we remembered, this wonderful superduper computer system system only works between 8.00am - 6pm, weekdays only.

which takes us round in a circle to my first post about the NHS shooting themselves in the foot.

My 82 yr old friend is in heart failure, couldn’t get her breath, took herself to A & E on the bus.
She said it was unbelievable busy, like something out of third world country. People lying on the floor.
I said she should have asked for 111 to give her an out of hours Gp appointment, instead of sitting there for hours on end.
I had terrible pain around my liver area & vomiting NYD. So my husband phoned for an ambulance. Ambulance said it wouldn’t be long, but then phoned & said four hours, could I go to A & E, said there was no way I could go & sit in A &E like that.
The person said she would ring Gp, I got appointment within the hour up at our local hospital.
I was in & out within half hour- phoned my gp in the morning & he arranged a scan. Now waiting to see a specialist in April.
Very impressed with my treatment.

DH suffers from heart failure. He has been more breathless recently, so we contacted the Heart Failure clinic. That was yesterday afternoon. 10.00am this morning the HF nurse arrived, assessed DH decided against hospital admission but said she would arrange an urgent GP visit. To ring the surgery if we hadn't heard from them by 3.00pm. We hadn't, so DH rang them or rather tried to ring them, after 20 minutes on hold he gave up.

DD reminded us that the surgery is on something called TotalTriage. All we needed to do was fill in a form. That was at about 7.00pm. Then we remembered, this wonderful superduper computer system system only works between 8.00am - 6pm, weekdays only.

which takes us round in a circle to my first post about the NHS shooting themselves in the foot.

A friend broke her arm on a Sunday and the hospital gave her a prescription for morphine. The hospital pharmacy was shut so next day her daughter took it to Boots. The pharmacist wouldn’t fulfil it because she didn’t know the doctor who signed it. Another 2 pharmacies did not have it in stock and one told her to go back to the hospital an hour away. The hospital pharmacy would not fulfil it because it had been issued the day before. When it was Sunday and shut.

I agree with the previous posters, that speaking to the consultant's secretary is usually the way forward. At least it always used to be - not now. I will name and shame here and have no compunction. Secretaries at the Norfolk and Norwich never answer their phones or respond to messages left on their flipping answering machines, despite every bit of ID imaginable being left. A nurse once told me that it was because they were very busy. Er, um .... am I missing something here. It is a secretary's job to deal with telephone calls - that is why she is employed. For heaven's sake, they no longer even have to transcribe Mr Pitman's or dictaphone tapes or put a letter into an envelope - all my medical letters come from Bristol. Why?

I do vaguely know what I am talking about as (a) I was properly trained and (b) latterly was a medical secretary. If I had not responded to patient telephone calls, I would have been sacked and quite rightly.

Primrose53

My son received a letter from the Oncologist last week.
It was dictated late November and typed up in December! It was postmarked recently too.

That’s bad 😳

I have found phone appointments are usually pretty good. Timing can be an issue as they are often fitted round patients who are attending on person. On one occasion a phone call scheduled for two came in at 6.15. She was apologetic but she did not rush the call When seen in person you never felt rushed

Fair point.

Basgetti

He was probably dealing with an emergency. It is frustrating but that would, rightly, take priority.

I uite agree, but sudden emergencies are part and parcel of hospital life. Surely there should be systems in place to inform the person waiting that the appointment has been cancelled and will be rebooked. The systems to do that should be part of the software suite that runs MyChart and reuire little or no import from the clinician. The department adminstrator will know aabout the emergency and justs hits a key.

This is one of the NHS's problems, it is always looking for emotionally blackmailing excuses instead of just sorting the problem out.

He was probably dealing with an emergency. It is frustrating but that would, rightly, take priority.

petra

You know for sure that all is not right in the NHS when the once world renowned Addenbrooke’s gets it dreadfully wrong 😥

news.sky.com/story/familys-anger-as-hospital-unit-where-father-died-after-surgery-mix-up-investigated-13519196

..and there was a story this weekend saying the neuroligical department at Addenbrookes is failing. Oh great, that is the department I am with.

Over months when DW was being treated, the combination of specialist nurse and consultant's secretary was unbeatable. Local GP is excellent, except when I am referred to a facility shared with other local practices. Communication between them is shaky, to say the least.

A few years back, I had to keep going back and forth between the local doctors surgery, which was just a couple of minutes walk away, and the hospital, which was 25 miles there, another 25 back. Costing me a fortune in petrol. It was once monthly for a year.

This was before I moved here to Whitby.

They kept telling me they'll ring me. I asked them to hold on as much as they could as I would be at work and might be dealing with customers, but I WOULD reply asap, the hospital said they were fine with that..

They sent me postal letters and phone texts saying they'll ring me on a certain day, at a certain time, within 1/2 hour either side, OK, no problem. I sat there at my work desk with my mobile ready.

No calls at all from them at any time.

This happened several times over 12 months. Out of every 10 calls, I had 2; the other 8 calls never came!

The next time I had an appointment at the hospital, the nurse I saw got quite snotty with me, demanding to know why I didn't answer the calls! I sniped at her; they didn't ring ME 8 out of 10 times when they said they would, and I did sit there dealing with customers and waiting for the calls.

It got to the point I refused point-blank to attend any more appointments because I got sick of being messed around and I couldn't keep taking time off work each month, I was losing wages and customers.

The next thing I know, I'm getting a letter, quite blunt and abrupt, saying I'm being taken off their list as I wasn't answering their calls!

That's fine by me!

My son received a letter from the Oncologist last week.
It was dictated late November and typed up in December! It was postmarked recently too.