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Overall, extremely poor service

Posted By patientpeter

"Overall, extremely poor service"

About: Royal Bournemouth General Hospital / Trauma and orthopaedics

(as the patient),

Orthopedic Outpatients at Royal Bournemouth Hospital recently had delays of more than an hour. No reason or apology given by staff. On asking why, a clinic nurse stated it was because of too many appointments booked in - how is this? Especially with a team of four doctors on duty in the clinic that day! ?

One would assume that it is all about removing patients from waiting lists (once they have an appointment) to the detriment of service quality the patient experiences.

The waiting room at Orthopedic Outpatients was hot, stuffy and airless and reception staff packed up and left for the day at 16: 45 whilst patients remained in the waiting area without knowing when they were going to be seen. Reception staff did not point to the screens indicating in small text that there were delays of more than an hour.

The consultant I saw comes with a very good reputation, however saw me for less than 5 mins and failed to even replace the torn and dirty used paper roll covering the examination couch. , this I had to do myself.

Overall, extremely poor service all round and a waste of my time for a 30 second examination that I waited more than an hour for. Had I been asked to come back I would not have bothered and would have simply remained seeing my physio.

I would like to suggest that Orthopedic Outpatients learn a little something from the Physio team in Rehab.

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Responses

Response from Sue Mellor, Patient Experience Lead, The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 9 years ago
Sue Mellor
Patient Experience Lead,
The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 03/09/2014 at 10:03
Published on Care Opinion at 22:30

Dear ‘Patientpeter’

I am sorry to hear that your experience of the Orthopaedic waiting area was so negative whilst attending our hospital this week.

I have contacted the management team to ask them to review the comments you have made and also respond personally. They have asked me to share the comments below:

“Unfortunately the waiting room does accommodate patients who are attending 3 different clinics not just orthopaedic outpatient clinics, and as a consequence the area unfortunately does become very busy at times. Due to the nature of the orthopaedic clinic most patients attending are brought to and from the clinic therefore we need to accommodate their companions in this area also.

The information screen is there to assist in informing attendees of the clinics, of any delays to any clinics running at that time, and we have asked the reception staff to inform each patient which clinic they are booked in, so they can be aware if there is any delay impacting on their appointment time.

I apologise if this was not done and the patient was not referred to the information screen for an update on the running of the clinic, as the aim is to keep everyone informed regarding any delay in the appointments at all times. We will remind our reception staff of the importance in keeping patients informed.

The paper roll should be changed between each patient as a matter of routine, I apologise if this was not done and this will be raised with all staff in the department to ensure there is no repeat of this going forward.

You made reference to the physio team in rehab and we will make contact with them, to see if there are aspects of their practice we can replicate within our department to improve our service.”

We constantly review the services we provide so we really appreciate the feedback we receive from our patients. It is important to us to know what we do well but also what we could do better to improve the patient’s visit.

If you would like to make any further comment please feel free to contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service on 01202 704886 or pals@rbch.nhs.uk

Kind regards

Sue Mellor

Head of Patient Engagement

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Response from Royal Bournemouth General Hospital 8 years ago
Royal Bournemouth General Hospital

Submitted on 23/04/2015 at 08:50
Published on nhs.uk on 24/04/2015 at 01:00

Response copied from Patient Opinion at time of posting in September 2014 Dear ‘Patientpeter’ I am sorry to hear that your experience of the Orthopaedic waiting area was so negative whilst attending our hospital this week. I have contacted the management team to ask them to review the comments you have made and also respond personally. They have asked me to share the comments below: “Unfortunately the waiting room does accommodate patients who are attending 3 different clinics not just orthopaedic outpatient clinics, and as a consequence the area unfortunately does become very busy at times. Due to the nature of the orthopaedic clinic most patients attending are brought to and from the clinic therefore we need to accommodate their companions in this area also. The information screen is there to assist in informing attendees of the clinics, of any delays to any clinics running at that time, and we have asked the reception staff to inform each patient which clinic they are booked in, so they can be aware if there is any delay impacting on their appointment time. I apologise if this was not done and the patient was not referred to the information screen for an update on the running of the clinic, as the aim is to keep everyone informed regarding any delay in the appointments at all times. We will remind our reception staff of the importance in keeping patients informed. The paper roll should be changed between each patient as a matter of routine, I apologise if this was not done and this will be raised with all staff in the department to ensure there is no repeat of this going forward. You made reference to the physio team in rehab and we will make contact with them, to see if there are aspects of their practice we can replicate within our department to improve our service.” We constantly review the services we provide so we really appreciate the feedback we receive from our patients. It is important to us to know what we do well but also what we could do better to improve the patient’s visit. If you would like to make any further comment please feel free to contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service on 01202 704886 or pals@rbch.nhs.uk Kind regards Sue Mellor Head of Patient Engagement

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