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Waiting time for a procedure recently

Story from nhs.uk

"Waiting time for a procedure recently"

About: Rowley Hall Hospital

My appointment for a cystoscopy last month was a shambles. My appointment time was 3.30. On arrival I was directed to a waiting room to be booked in. One and three quarter hours later I was booked in. At 7.30pm I was called for my procedure. At 7.45 I was back in the waiting room, procedure complete. I Left the hospital at 8.00pm after waiting for the required paperwork. Everyone that day was given a 3.30 appointment. Based on the knowledge that there are only 3 scopes that must have a 40 minute sterilisation process after each patient, it is a simple math that would tell you that after 3 patients, any further patients would have to wait 40 minutes. Surely the admin team making appointments would know this and therefore stagger the appointment times. This was not the case and I had to remain in the hospital for 4.5 hours as I was the last patient on the list of 10! This is surely patient care at its worst for which the admin team should take full responsibility. I have attended this hospital for this procedure over the last three years and this is the first time I have been subjected to this inefficiency.

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Responses

Response from Rowley Hall Hospital 8 years ago
Rowley Hall Hospital

Submitted on 08/09/2015 at 20:19
Published on nhs.uk on 09/09/2015 at 02:30

Dear Patient,

Thank you very much for providing your feedback, I am sorry we did not meet your expectations on the day of your procedure; we do try our very best. Your feedback is invaluable to us so that we know where we could have done better and to improve how we provide care to patients in the future.

Although I can see your logic in terms of how long the procedure takes and how long each patient needs to be in the hospital we do, for some procedures, bring all the patients in together as the Consultant may change the order of the list on the day and we may not know exactly what time the theatre will be free from the previous list. The time for some procedures can vary considerably and we need to build this into our scheduling.

This may have been the case on the day you came in.

The administration team do not drive the theatre activity, all clinical activity, which includes the scheduling, is owned and managed by our clinical teams, they are the ones closest to the patient and know best.

It does however appear we failed to keep you well informed for which I apologies. I have spoken to the staff who support these procedures and we have no record that you made a complaint whilst with us, I would always urge patients to speak out if they are not happy which gives us the opportunity to provide an explanation to them and where possible rectify the issue.

Thank you again for comments; we will use your feedback to ensure we learn from what we could have done better.

Regards

Mark Lacey

General Manager

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