"Shambolic Outpatient Appointment System"

I attended the Royal Brompton Hospital outpatient department in the Fulham Wing, for my face-to-face appointment with my Consultant as per my appt letter and the text I received one week prior to my appt. I was really looking forward to seeing my Consultant in person, as I have only been allowed to have telephone appointments with them for the past 2 years. I told my Consultant that I really don't like telephone appts, so I was over the moon when I was finally booked in to see them f2f. However, unfortunately, this appt never happened as my Consultant wasn't present in the hospital. Instead, they were working from home only doing telephone appts. I was told that this Consultant and at least one other Consultant were working from home and hadn't seen any patients f2f since the start of the covid-19 pandemic over 2 years ago. During my visit to the outpatient department, I noticed that all of the consultation rooms seemed to be empty, there wasn't a cardiologist or any other doctor to be seen in sight and there were no other patients waiting to be seen, apart from myself. Thus giving me the impression that all these consultants must be working from home only doing telephone appts as well.

Whilst I was sitting in the waiting area I received a telephone call from my Consultant. However, as my mobile didn't have a signal, the call went straight to voicemail. They obviously didn't know at that point that I had come to the hospital to see them f2f. I can't understand why I was put on their list for a telephone appt when my appt was booked as a f2f appt, and I had an appt letter and text to prove it. I would have thought that this would have flagged up on the computer system or one of the admin staff would have informed my Consultant that one of his patients had a f2f appt booked with them. Therefore, allowing time for my Consultant to come to the hospital, where they should have been anyway, to see me f2f in any of the consultation rooms as they were all empty and conduct the rest of their appts over the telephone. Or failing that, they could have changed my consultation to a telephone appt and I could then have been informed of the fact. Although I wouldn't have been happy that my appt had been changed, that would have still been better than having a complete waste journey to the hospital. This was made worse by the fact that I do not live locally, so had to take the train and underground to get there.

All I can gather is that most of the Consultants at this hospital are still only doing telephone appointments, and covid-19 is still being used as an excuse for this. There doesn't even seem to be an end in sight to this sorry situation, when most of the other hospitals are pretty much back to normal again, both in seeing patients f2f and not wearing face masks/coverings anymore. It is although the Royal Brompton hospital is stuck in 2020/2021 when it is now 2022 and the rest of the country has moved on and is learning to live with covid-19.