My wife and I live on an Island, the nearest hospital is on the neighbouring Island of Islay which is a 21 mile outward journey, (42 mile round trip), with a half a mile ferry in the middle. At best, the journey takes one and a quarter hours in our own car.
In August 2013, my wife received an appointment for the Medical Clinic, to which she attended, seen to and sorted, job done, informed that an appointment will be made for her to return for a procedure. So an appointment was sent dated mid September for an appointment this week. The wording was as follows, Clinic Medical Clinic
Dr Henderson
Appointment - the date and time was inserted
Location Islay Hospital
It has to be noted that Dr Henderson has been retired for some time.
My wife attends the appointment, it is a different Doctor from the September appointment, plus no sign of anyone to undertake the procedure. It turns out that it is a duplicate of the September appointment and the Doctor admitted that it was a wasted journey. A journey that has cost £16 plus all the wasted time.
The NHS is making a big thing at the moment about how many appointments are not kept and the cost to the NHS. It would be well for the NHS to come clean about how many appointments are made in error such as the one above and the cost of such errors. It may well be that their statistics include such appointments where patients have seen the pointless journey and just not turned up. A fault of the patient, no, I would think a fault of the NHS.
"Islay Hospital Appointment"
About: Islay Hospital Islay Hospital Bowmore PA43 7JD
Posted by Adamas (as ),
Do you have a similar story to tell?
Tell your story & make a difference ››
Responses
See more responses from Maimie Thompson