"Superb clinical staff badly let down by..."

It is great pity that the first point of contact between the patients and the hospital are the clerical staff. On the extremely rare occasions that some of them actually answer the phones they do not follow up on promises made to the patients. 'I will get back to you by 4pm' means I have passed it on and am really not interested any more.

I understand that they are 'very busy', who isn't? The patients who have to retry time after time to get through are busy, the clinical staff are very busy, but they have the care and consideration to look after the patients, not ignore their phone calls and requests for assistance.