"Avoid!"

Whoever is responsible for the organisation in the appointments department needs re-appointing. There seems to be no common sense or cost effectiveness in its management or operation & is urgent need of a serious overhaul. Appointments are sent out by post (NHS cost!) then when you need to change it, the phone system cannot handle the volume of calls & you are forced to make endless fruitless calls to be told by an automaton that the staff are busy (at your cost!). If you do manage to get through, the staff cannot change the appointment on the phone nor can you give them a date when you will be available so they send out another appointment by post (more NHS cost!) so you may have to phone again to amend. Circle upon circle. If you are fortunate enough to get an appt to suit, as an outpatient you are informed that you must report to the main reception; however if your appt falls on a Saturday, the main reception is closed & there are no signs or anybody to direct you to the correct location. If you are really lucky & having found the correct dept, your consultant will have been informed by the duty nurse that you are waiting; if you are unlucky (as I & another outpatient were recently) your name will have been missed off that list. When you have waited for at least 40mins & have enquired of the nurse at the department's reception as to how long it will be before you are seen, you are told that her duties are now finished for the day & she is off home but if you carry on waiting someone will see you. Then after you have given up of ever being seen, paid your car parking & petrol costs & gone home, you are then phoned some 3 hours later to ask why you haven't attended your appointment!! And don't bother complaining to Customer Services. Their sole function appears to be to offer platitudes to the patient & to ensure that the Hospital doesn't get sued. Perhaps if any serious attention was given to the complaints received & the appropriate action taken by senior management, there would be no need for a Customer Services department at all. But I guess that would leave them all out of a job; no wonder nothing is done. It would be a joke if it wasn't all true.