"An unacceptable job of service provision"

I have been a patient with the Wonford Ophthalmology Clinic, Royal Devon University Healthcare since 2024 when I was referred there to treat a retinal tear.

I have had several follow-up appointments since then with the latest appointment scheduled for 1500 hours.

I arrived at the hospital at 1430 and tried to check in and was told that I could not check in until 15 minutes before my appointment. I explained that I had to drive down from Taunton, a distance of 35 miles away. I also explained that the time it took for the trip could vary considerably due to ongoing road works around the Taunton area and that I was not always able to find out about delays cause by roadworks in advance of travel, so I always allow time for unanticipated delays and might arrive early if the roads were all open.

The receptionist looked up my appointment saw that it was for 1500 hours and told me to go sit down and come back to the desk to check-in in 15 minutes - at 1445 hours.

I sat down and at 1440 my phone rang and it was the Royal Devon Hospital to tell me that my appointment had been cancelled, 15 minutes before the appointment’s scheduled time.

I inquired at the desk to see why my appointment had been cancelled. I was told that it was cancelled because the doctor was on holiday. I asked why, if the doctor was on holiday, my appointment had not been cancelled in advance of my arrival at the hospital. I asked why appointments were not cancelled days in advance once the doctor’s holiday schedule was known and approved by the hospital.

I received several shrugs and was told that somebody screwed up somewhere, but no one could say where that might be.

I then drove 35 miles back to Taunton and as we sat down for dinner the phone rang. It was the Royal Devon calling to say they could not explain why I had an appointment scheduled earlier that day at all. The reason I for this was that I had been discharged after an earlier appointment. I asked why if I was discharged earlier, why no one had told me I was discharged and why a follow-up appoint was scheduled at all. I was given no explanation for why this had happened.

The questions on the Care Opinion flyer I took in order to provide comment asked “How did we do”?

The answer is very simple – Royal Devon did an unacceptable job of service provision.

1.I am sure the hospital has good reasons for not allowing a patient to check-in more than 15 minutes before the scheduled appointment time. But this ignores the inability of patients to arrange their travel to arrive in a 15 minute time slot between arrival and treatment.

2.The sorry saga of my appointment makes clear the multiple failures of Royal Devon. I won’t repeat the reasons here again, but the Hospital's inability to correlate patient appointments with doctors availability is inexcusable.