"Not answering the Phone"

I tried to contact the Northampton Hospital Audiology Department about 3 weeks ago and rang at approximately 1pm - after pressing various numbers to select Audiology for follow up appointments, the recorded message told me I was 'Number 2 in the queue' and I then held on for over 30 minutes with regularly being told I was two in the queue.   After about 35 minutes I gave up and hung up as having to wait that long was totally unacceptable and I could no longer waste any more of my time.  

I tried ringing back about 2. 15 and the telephone was then answered in about 5 minutes and when I complained about the long unanswered call early in the day and I was told that the staff would have been at lunch and the telephone does not get answered during this period! ! !  

I asked why at lunchtime did they not switch the telephones over to a recorded message warning patients that the phone is currently not being answered and to ring back after 2pm, as that was both a simple and logical thing to do? ? ? ?  

I was told that they did not do this!   In this day and age this is a simple action that staff should be able to do with the telephone system and that will save hours of patients wasted time calling a telephone number that is never going to be answered during lunch time.   Even better would be to stager staff's lunch times so there is a member of staff always available to answer the telephone - both options are simple and it is appalling that neither of these are done and Audiology obviously have no regard for patient service!