"Not applicable"

What I liked

Not applicable

What could be improved

I've been trying to secure an appointment for my daughter for about three months at the Mount Vernan Spinal Diagnostics Unit.

The first two appointments never made it onto the system, neither did we receive any notification of the appointment. The third appointment actully made it onto the system upon checking in advance of the designated date but once again, no documentation was received.

Anything else?

Having expended huge swathes of time a few days before the 3rd appointment and finally tracking down the consultant's secretary (after first determining who my daughter was due to see), I discovered we needed a film of her MRI scan.

This being Friday with the appointment due on Tuesday, I cancelled out on meetings/obligations to provide a 3 hour block to retrieve the MRI scan on Monday but it transpires the request has to come from the consultant and it was too late to progress the request.

The consultant phoned me up in person to discuss the situation and we agreed it was a waste of our respective time to meet without the MRI film and that in future, I would liaise directly with his Secretary to cut out the incompentance and lack of notification.

Today my daughter received a terse letter notifying her she has been discharged from the care of Mount Vernon which we elected to attend in the first place under the new system of choice - laughable results - stating "your GP has been informed."

My GP is already well aware of the problems we have had trying to secure an appointment and given that I cancelled the appointment directly with the consultant, I'm staggered to find out that we've been reverted to our family GP.

Telling that a letter can be despatched promptly to remonstrate with patients and yet the admistation falls down when it comes to booking appointments and confirming and notifying patients of date/time/place and consultant.

An apology is in order but I doubt very much an apology will be issued. I've wasted so much time trying to secure this appointment and will be phoning our GP first thing tommorow, having finished work too late to discuss the issue with him today.