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Care Opinion

Waiting Area Confusion

Posted By woodpigeoncs49

"Waiting Area Confusion"

About: Dr Gray's Hospital / Paediatric Unit

(as a service user),

Attended Paediatric appointment with my teenage son. We were directed to general outpatients waiting area on green chairs. After a 40 minute wait I went back to reception and enquired why there was such a delay. We were informed we had been directed to wrong waiting area and should have been in paediatric outpatients and to “just go up”. I asked if they would be contacted to tell them why we were late, to be told “they’ll know”.

We presented at paediatric outpatients to be told as we were so late we probably wouldn’t be seen. That they could tell we had checked in in plenty of time however due to appointments, there may not be sufficient time to be seen. Thankfully clinician agreed to see my son. We were then told by HCSW that this happens all the time.

I feel a more efficient system should be in place to locate patients who are booked in on system but not in correct location for appointment due to being given incorrect directions. Worked out ok this time but could’ve resulted in us appearing to have not turned up for an appointment we’d been waiting months for. Also meant a 1.5 hour absence for myself from work to attend a 10mins appointment.

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Responses

Response from Louise Pearson, Unit Operational Manager, Women & Children's Services, Dr Gray's, NHS Grampian 9 months ago
Louise Pearson
Unit Operational Manager, Women & Children's Services, Dr Gray's,
NHS Grampian

Submitted on 13/07/2023 at 09:47
Published on Care Opinion at 09:47

picture of Louise Pearson

Dear woodpigeoncs49,

I'm sorry to hear about your poor experience and the inconvenience of additional time away from work that could easily have been avoided. Thank you for taking the time to highlight this issue which is primarily about signposting and the need for improved communication. We'll use this as a prompt to refresh training with our outpatient reception team to avoid other patients and their families experiencing this in the future.

I'm pleased that the clinician was able to see your son and hope the consultation was helpful.

Kind regards,

Louise

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Response from Kathryn Auchnie, Clinical Nurse Manager, Childrens Division, NHS Grampian 9 months ago
We are preparing to make a change
Kathryn Auchnie
Clinical Nurse Manager, Childrens Division,
NHS Grampian

Submitted on 13/07/2023 at 09:52
Published on Care Opinion at 10:03

picture of Kathryn Auchnie

Dear woodpigeoncs49

I am sorry to read of your experience when attending with your son for his outpatient appointment and can only apologise for the error in directing you to the wrong waiting area. This must have been extremely frustrating for you both but I am pleased to hear that he was seen on the day.

I will discuss this with the outpatient manager and see what changes we can make to address this issue and improve patient experience.

Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback

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Response from Louise Pearson, Unit Operational Manager, Women & Children's Services, Dr Gray's, NHS Grampian 3 months ago
We have made a change
Louise Pearson
Unit Operational Manager, Women & Children's Services, Dr Gray's,
NHS Grampian

Submitted on 01/02/2024 at 14:10
Published on Care Opinion at 16:50

picture of Louise Pearson

Dear woodpigeoncs49,

I realise it’s been a number of months since you shared your paediatric appointment experience with us and that we indicated, in our response to you, that we were preparing to make a change. I thought you would be interested to know how these changes are progressing and I can now confirm that additional training has been delivered to the outpatient reception staff which has helped improve communication. In addition to this we now have the support of the volunteer team at the main Dr Gray’s entrance to help with wayfinding.

Changes often take place in stages and although not complete yet, there are signage improvements planned across the whole site as part of the Dr Gray’s transformation programme.

I hope this information is helpful and provides some assurance that the feedback we receive does make a difference.

Take care,

Louise

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