"Chaotic wasteful appointment system"

Thank you for your feedback, I am sorry to hear that you have had a poor experience at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital.

Unfortunately due to demand for certain services outweighing our current capacity, there are occasion when we are not always able to offer patients an appointment within the timescales we would ideally like. We treat a high number of patients who clinically require short notice appointment which sometimes means that appointments of more clinically routine patients have to be re-arranged. To help to address this problem we have recently expanded our services to new sites including Trafford Hospital and Altrincham Hospital which is providing extra appointment capacity. We also continue to expand our clinical team to support the increasing demands for ophthalmology services in Manchester.

Regarding your appointment feedback, we are looking at ways in which we can improve and speed up our communication with GPs and our patients. We have just introduced extra staff who work evening sessions and whose main role is to write and send clinic outcome letters within a shorter timescale. With this extra team, we’re confident we can communicate with our patients in a timelier manner.

Case notes are currently kept off-site due to the volume of patients we see who each have a case note which we cannot physically accommodate onsite. We do, however, have an emergency case note transfer system in place which allows us to quickly get access case notes should we need them urgently. We also now scan emergency appointment clinic notes and store them electronically so that they are accessible for clinicians should they require them at a later consultation. We are continuously exploring new ways to store patient information so that we can obtain information quickly and accurately.

Communication is very important to us and we would encourage patients to keep communicating with us, as you have done, so we can hear your feedback. If you have further comments or concerns you would like to discuss,Patient Advice and Liaison Service on 0161 276 8686 or by e-mailing pals@cmft.nhs.uk and we will be happy to discuss any comments or queries you have.