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Care Opinion

Cancelled appointments

Posted By CHoy24

"Cancelled appointments"

About: Adult Mental Health and Learning Disabilities / Psychological Therapies

(as a service user),

My son was suppose to have an appointment with the Adult Psychological Therapy Services in Derry, Old Bridge House, after being on the waiting list for quite a long time.  When he eventually got an appointment which came at such a relief he was then notified that the appointment time needed to be changed but it was on the same day.  He was happy enough as he is very keen to have this appointment so he booked the day off his work.  Just as he was about to board the bus to his appointment 14 miles away  he received a phone call to tell him that his appointment was cancelled due to the appointment being "double booked". This I find extremely hard to believe that a booking system allows this to happen.  Human error is one thing but a computerised booking systems does not allow "double booking". 

Not only was my son very disappointed he is also at the loss of days income which he will not be compensated for!!  
Adults needing this service are extremely vulnerable and any change in routine can have a negative impact on them so I would have thought that if any department would have empathy, it would be the 

Adult Psychological Therapy Services!  Appointment cancelled and no alternative date/time offered!!  Terrible service!!

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Responses

Response from Ciara Payne, Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, Adult Mental Health, WHSCT 2 months ago
Ciara Payne
Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, Adult Mental Health,
WHSCT

Submitted on 13/02/2024 at 12:24
Published on Care Opinion at 12:44

Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention. We wish to assure you that we are fully committed to investigating the issues raised in order to prevent recurrence.

In order to investigate the issues raised, we will require specific details, and would welcome you to contact us directly, to enable us to resolve this issue.

Please contact Roisin Laverty Team Manager Adult Psychological Therapy Service: 028 71320143.

Alternatively please contact the Western Trust Complaints Department, either by email:complaints.department@westerntrust.hscni.net or telephone 028 7134 5171 – extension: 214142

Kind regards

Ciara Payne

Cognitive Behavioural Therapist

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Response from Ciara Payne, Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, Adult Mental Health, WHSCT last month
Ciara Payne
Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, Adult Mental Health,
WHSCT

Submitted on 05/03/2024 at 13:42
Published on Care Opinion at 14:19

Dear Choy24

I would like to start off by thanking you for taking the time out to leave your feedback regarding psychological therapies. This is a very valuable service to our community particularly for vulnerable adults who do rely on routine as you mentioned and we do our best not to impact on people’s lives further as much as we can.

We are very keen to clarify this matter.

When you uploaded your post onto Care Opinion we responded by providing contact details for you to discuss the matter with us. Unfortunately, we haven’t had any further contact from you.

In order to fully investigate the matter we do need some additional details (for example, the date on which your son’s appointment was scheduled to have taken place etc). We would be very grateful if you would make contact with us using the details provided in our previous response so we can explore this issue further.

Kind regards

Ciara Payne

Cognitive Behavioural Therapist

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Update posted by CHoy24 (a service user)

I had previously sent an email to complaints.department@westerntrust.hscni.net on the same date that I sent my initial email to Care Option. But I do appreciate you getting back to me even though you give me no explanation as to how your system allowed an appointment being double booked.

Response from Ciara Payne, Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, Adult Mental Health, WHSCT last month
Ciara Payne
Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, Adult Mental Health,
WHSCT

Submitted on 19/03/2024 at 12:04
Published on Care Opinion at 12:28

Dear CHoy24

Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback regarding Adult Psychological Therapies Service.

The booking process for this service is service users respond to a booking letter inviting them to contact the service to arrange an appointment. This is then arranged by our booking team. On the very rare occasion appointments can be double booked due to administrative errors or cancelled due to staff illness and we apologise that this was the case for your son. As mentioned, cancelling appointments does not happen often and whilst I do not know the reason for the cancelling of appointment/s on this occasion, can I assure this this is not common practice and only occurs if really necessary.

I am not sure if your son has received another appointment slot, therefore can you please contact us so we can look into this for you.

Please contact Roisin Laverty Team Manager Adult Psychological Therapy Service Tel: 028 71320143

Kind regards

Ciara Payne

Cognitive Behavioural Therapist

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