Saturday, March 15, 2008

More hospital tales

Arrived at hospital for appointment at 10am at 9.55am. Waited at reception counter for a few minutes until it was my turn. There were several administration staff at the desk, all equally incompetent, rifling pieces of paper attempting to look efficient but becoming increasingly flustered. "I've got an appointment at 10am" I said and she finally found my name of a piece of paper and started filling in the form. "Can I check your details?" she asked and proceeded to reel off my personal information, all correct. Until she reached my GP surgery, which was the old one. "Sorry", I said, "that's the old one. I wrote a letter to you to tell you the new details". She looked annoyed "I wasn't here that day" she replied, although I had said nothing about when I sent the letter. I gave her the new details although given the early time of day and my tired state I accidentally said "x x surgery" instead of health centre. I was instructed to take a seat and wait for my appointment so I asked how long the wait would be. Obviously I wasn't expecting a precise time but I was a little surprised to find that they were still on the 9.05am appointments and it was now 10.10am. I called work, explained the situation and sat down to read my book. After a few minutes the administrator accusingly called me to the desk: "You said x x surgery but it is actually x x health center. I have found it now" (implication that this was my fault although I had attempted to update records via letter), "we have updated your hospital record but not this scan clinic record. I have updated it now for you". Which is presumably why my GP never received the results of the last scan and why, after the scan which finally happened at 11am or so, I asked the consultant if I could take the letter to my GP myself. He agreed. Presumably he too has witnessed the inefficiency of the administrators.

3 comments:

Cumbrian said...

Administration is a seriously weak in the NHS. I believe that organization benefits from simplicity. In the NHS there are too many layers and no will to improve the situation because everyone wants to secure their job. Have you ever tried to get one hospital to communicate with another one? Getting them to pass on important patient information is nigh impossible

Anonymous said...

Do you ever have anything positive to say about anyone other than yourself? I mean we could all give an impartial and one sided view with regards to anything and anyone profession(i.e. lawyers) but it would be inaccurate and small minded to do so?

Anonymous said...

I always thought that the whole reason why you set your blog up in the first place was to give you somewhere to record your own PERSONAL musings about whatever takes your fancy. If we always tried to give an unbiased and well rounded account then this would surely be the same as not having an opinion at all. One of the enjoyable things about reading your blog is the fact that if challenges my own views. If i disagree then i am free to do so.

Liz