"I turned up for an appointment ..."

What could be improved

I turned up for an appointment today at 12.00, after having had an examination of a suspected broken bone in my wrist 10 days ago. At the time, two doctors looked at my x-rays and concluded that there was probably no break but gave me a wrist support and booked me in for this appointment today, when I was supposed to have an x-ray. When I arrived I had to wait 30 mins (I know this is not long but it's still not great when an appointment has been made) and was then told by a doctor that further analysis had revealed that there was indeed a broken bone but they had not got in touch with me to tell me this. (If I had known, I would have been even more careful during the last 10 days). Moreover, they could not do the x-ray and review today, as promised 10 days ago, but booked me in tomorrow to see an orthopaedist - they had made no attempt to contact me to tell me that my visit today was unnecessary or to rebook the appointment. I feel badly let down - I have not been properly informed of the seriousness of my condition and have been allowed to report for a useless appointment and have been asked at 24 hours notice to come for a different appointment. While all the staff have been friendly (and my previous experience at the hospital has been very positive), I feel that this experience has suggested that patients like myself cannot trust the way the hospital communicates with people like me, so that in future I should ring the hospital a few days after every diagnosis to ensure that they have not changed their minds and I should ring the hospital before every appointment to make sure that they do not want to change it. This would be very inconvenient for me - and for the hospital - but would protect me from the danger and waste of time which arises from the fact that the hospital is not able to communicate appropriately with its patients.