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Uncompassionate staff

Posted By Owl381

"Uncompassionate staff"

About: University Hospital Ayr

(as the patient),

I don’t think the hospital staff are very compassionate, they need to be more compassionate. The appointment letter states you need to contact the hospital 7 days from the date of the letter – this does not leave many days if you receive the letter on a Friday two of the 7 days are taken out by the weekend.

It has taken me 8 or 9 calls over 4 days to get an appointment changed and it should not be so difficult. The doctors and nurses are fine, it’s the ‘gatekeepers’ who are not very understanding

I asked what the consultation would involve – it would be a ‘chat with the nurse’ and this would then be followed up with a doctor at a later date. When a person finds it difficult dealing with hospitals do they really have to go through additional hoops?

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Responses

Response from Eunice Goodwin, Patient Feedback Manager for NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Quality Improvement and Governance Team, NHS Ayrshire and Arran 9 years ago
Eunice Goodwin
Patient Feedback Manager for NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Quality Improvement and Governance Team,
NHS Ayrshire and Arran

I respond initially to most of the posts and ensure they are passed to the appropriate team whether they are compliments, observations or grumbles. It is important to make sure all issues are addressed and I try to encourage that to happen for all the posts as required.

Submitted on 12/11/2014 at 18:17
Published on Care Opinion on 13/11/2014 at 12:05

picture of Eunice Goodwin

Dear Owl381,

Firstly I must apologize for taking so long to reply to you but I have been out of the office since Thursday last week. You are now probably thinking; well doesn’t that sum it all up? And I would understand why you may think that way. We absolutely do value all the feedback we get from patients and everyone else for that matter.

I am also sorry that you have had such a difficulty getting your appointment changed to a suitable date and time but I hope you do have one now that suits you. I agree entirely that 7 days is not long and we have had one previous post on a similar theme. Because of the post, we set up a small working group to look at the situation and there were a few small changes made to the procedure, one of which is that we try not to post appointment letters on a Friday if it can be avoided as we know that there will be no deliveries until the Monday. The senior manager committed to reviewing this and if we can be more generous with the time scale, then we will amend it. The manager responsible for appointments would like to look into why you experienced this problem. If you would like to contact and let me know your name, date of birth or (preferably) your CHI number and we can look into it because it should not be as difficult.

In all honesty, whether we want to admit it or not, as a result of such high demand for the service (which is just growing and growing) the appointments team is overloaded and they are only able to fit people into the spaces that they are given for each part of the service but I will pass this to the managers for review.

With regards to the lack of information about the clinic process, if you wish to contact me and let me know; what clinic you are due to attend, your name and dater of birth, perhaps we can find out more about what to expect when you come to the clinic from a member of the team you will be coming to see. My phone number is 01563 826222 or email me on eunice.goodwin@aapct.scot.nhs.uk,

I hope this is helpful,

Kind regards

Eunice

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