"Very poor"

What could be improved

The Podiatry department is not functioning properly. My connection with it has been as a patient and started when I saw one of your podiatrists at Wythenshawe hospital, who immediately suggested that I come to their clinic at Withington the following week and that they would contact me the following day to arrange an appointment the following week. When no contact was made after 3 days I called and was told that the first available appointment was in 4 weeks, I accepted this date.

When I arrived there was no record of my appointment on the system, after some searching the letter confirming my appointment date and time was found and confirmed that I had presented at the correct time. I was not especially surprised to be kept waiting a further period of time, rather grateful that a slot had been found. I was issued with an insert for my shoe and asked to make another appointment, which was duly made for today – the first appointment of the day as I have other commitments.

When I arrived 10 minutes early for my appointment at 8.20am I was told by the receptionist that they covered only physiotherapy and that the empty seat beside them was for podiatry and that their colleague had not yet arrived. Another patient later arrived for podiatry with a letter, which the first receptionist duly took, but with which they did nothing.

Eventually at 8.45 I approached the receptionist again and asked whether I should make myself known to the podiatrists since no receptionist had arrived and therefore my presence was not logged. At that point the podiatrist who dealt with me on the two previous occasions arrived, the receptionist explained, the other patient also asked if she was affected in the same way, at which point her letter was taken, she was asked to sit in another corridor and I was ignored and therefore left.

Continued under 'other comments' below

Anything else?

Need I tell you that you are a service with a duty of care? The ‘service’ would appear to be a shambles and a huge waste of many people’s time and therefore not only a huge annoyance on a personal level, but a drain on the economy.

Yours,

Fran McArthur