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EKHT hospital no answering or calling back

Posted By BodBod

"EKHT hospital no answering or calling back"

About: East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

(as other),

I have experienced over and over not being able to get hold of a medical secretary and rarely call back, or takes days before they do.

I have been in many nhs admin/secretaries offices and noticed some staff tend to leave the phone to ring until it goes on to answer machine, seems common practice. Also seen them pick up all answerphone messages in one go, then decide which , if and when to call!!

I have come across some efficient medical secretaries, but tbh not the majority I have dealt with.

I’m sure my post won’t be like by nhs but seriously something needs doing about this overall way of working. 

Can you imagine going into a shop and staff telling you ‘wait over by the produce until we  are ready to speak to you!!’ . No way...

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Responses

Response from East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust 4 years ago
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 10/03/2021 at 13:46
Published on Care Opinion at 13:46

Thank you for your email and we were very sorry to read about the concerns you raised. We would like to take this further for you and would ask that you contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Team (PALS) on 01227 783145 or via our email address, which is ekh-tr.pals@nhs.net.

Update posted by BodBod (other)

Thank you for your response.

With regards to contacting PALS. I have emailed PALS in the past. From what I've seen they seem to operate by having staff working ‘stints’ at PALS office so issues are passed on (unsuccessfully in my experience). Never got a reply from my email!

Unfortunately this puts them in the same scenario as the Secretaries ☹️.

I believe you have received full information on the issues I posted and it’s over to you to take this to higher management within EKHT or Consultants to be remedied. I have no desire to go around in circles with PALS within EKHT on this. Quite simply Secretaries within the Trust, and all Administration staff, should be made aware that they are required to answer the phones (not leave to answer machine messaging). The onus should not be on myself to go through to PALS (and get ignored).

In many quality businesses staff are required to answer calls within three rings. Perhaps this should be installed into your staff.

Sad that such basic service behaviour has to be complained about.

I sincerely hope that the above is filtered through to everyone it is relevant to.

Thank you for your time and stay safe.

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