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Frustrating service

Posted By paprikask76

"Frustrating service"

About: Royal Victoria Hospital / Genito-Urinary Medicine

(as a service user),

I find obtaining a test for the GUM clinic Belfast to be a disgrace. They take calls from 08:15-10:15 Monday to Friday. They make you do a very complicated self test at home, that takes 6 days to arrive to NI. Post back and wait. To get an appointment you have to have symptoms and they make it so difficult. The phone rings off the hook and the person answering clearly is very stressed when they answer - not that pleasant.

You should make STI checking as simple and user friendly as possible otherwise people just give up and continue to spread infections. We’re not in Covid anymore yet we’re still getting the same excuse as 3 years ago about protocols. 

Other than that the nurses at the actual clinic are fab. 

I recommend an actual decent service with online bookings, these SH24 tests are very complicated and take way too long. 

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Responses

Response from Stephen Greenlees, Senior Sexual Health Adviser, GUM, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust 15 months ago
Stephen Greenlees
Senior Sexual Health Adviser, GUM,
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust

Help patients to make informed choices about their sexual health

Submitted on 09/01/2023 at 10:21
Published on Care Opinion at 10:41

picture of Stephen Greenlees

Dear Paprikask76,

I am really sorry to hear you had difficulties accessing the GUM clinic. We are aware the phone lines can become very busy at times and it is frustrating for patients who are unable to get through. The staff monitoring the phones answer a large volume of calls and strive to provide an excellent service at all times. I apologise if this was not your experience.

I am sorry you found SH24, the home testing service, slow and difficult to use. SH24 is used by all of the health and social care trusts across Northern Ireland. We direct patients without symptoms to SH24 as it frees up capacity for patients with symptoms to attend the clinic. Many people like using the home testing service as it gives them greater choice and flexibility. I understand there have been delays recently due to the ongoing industrial action with Royal Mail. Some people find it difficult completing the self-tests at home for various reasons. There are instructions for how to complete the tests in the test pack and a link to a short instructional video which you may find helpful. However, if SH24 is not for you please let us know and we will book you in with a clinician. We welcome your feedback and hope to use it to improve our service. Demand on the service is high and we would like to increase capacity. Online booking may help with this and it is something we are hoping to introduce in the future of our service. We are also reviewing some of the changes put in place to ensure the service was able to continue during the pandemic. This will hopefully increase the number of face-to-face appointments available for patients and increase phone capacity. Thank you for your patience with this while we make these improvements to the service.

Lastly thanks again for your positive feedback about the nurses, we will ensure this is passed onto the team via the unit Sister.

Kind regards,

Stephen

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