Friday, September 25, 2009

Shambolic NHS appointments system

Today we go for our fifth attempt to get a mammogram and its result. The process has so far taken well over a month, the Xray was taken on 20th August and it is now 25th September. It needed 5 interactions with the hospital. What a comment on the organisation of our NHS!

The Xray was taken on 20/8/09 and an appointment booked for a consultants visit to follow up. We expect ths to be all clear so should not take long. In fact a simple phone call to say "all clear" would suffice.

The NHS set an appointment for 4 Sept. But we had a phone call on 2 Sept to cancel this.
Rescheduled by NHS, not us, to 18 Sept, which was canceled by a phone call on 16 Sept.
Rescheduled again for the hospitals convenience to 24 September, an appointment at which we attended, a return journey of 30 miles. On arrival at reception we were told it was impossible for us to have been given an appointment for that day as no consultants, and not even a nurse trained in Xray interpretation was available that day. Jan showed them the confirmation letter they had sent, why sent it if the appointment was "impossible?"

Surely we need a management shake up, not more funds for cancer research?