"Catalogue of errors, rude receptionist"

Arrived early for my 9:10 am appointment with a consultant, having taken a generous 2 hours off work to accommodate the appointment. Alarm bells began to ring when the other doctors appeared regularly to call in their patients but several long waiting patients sat uncalled for, like me (bearing in mind we were there early when the waiting room was almost empty). Then began the routine appearance of a nurse who would explain 'listen, we weren't told you need a hearing test, you'll need to wait about 2 hours for one and then, when that's done, I'll tell the consultant when they get in they'll see you when they can'.

After two or three of those announcements my consultant appeared to call in the first patient (not one of those who needed a hearing test) 50 minutes past my appointment time. Immediately thereafter, while the doctor was walking away, a nurse came out to me and repeated the same excuse to me, minus the 'I'll tell them when they gets in' part.

This nurse explained the doctor was 'running late' but couldn't explain why the need for a hearing test hadn't been communicated to either me or the relevant department. The nurse was very professional and exceptionally nice and personable. I explained I could not stay around until the afternoon as I would lose my job, which they accepted. They said that even if I waited for the hearing test there were others who had not been booked in so I would be in a queue after that. On the nurses advice I went to the desk to explain that I would need another appointment. When asked by the very professional receptionist behind the desk why I couldn't stay I explained that it appeared the consultant had only just arrived and that in any event an undisclosed hearing test would be required, which had not been booked by the doctor. At that point the receptionist behind the 'position closed' sign yelled at me 'the doctor's been here all morning actually!'. It wasn't out of character, evidently, given that they were shouting at people on the phone when I walked in over an hour earlier.