"Excellent care but where's the organisation?"

My wife had long-awaited eye surgery cancelled at the last minute because of a lack of inter-departmental communication. My 76 year old mother has been inundated with dozens of inappropriate appointment times after being referred by her GP for a problem our local hospital was unable to deal with. There seems to be a general assumption amongst Hallamshire-based appointments staff that all out-patients live within a five mile radius of S10. My mother was constantly being sent appointments by automated telephone message for times she would have found virtually impossible to make unless she awoke at the crack of dawn and managed to find someone to drive her the 25 or so miles via two busy motorways and the Sheffield Ring-Road system through rush-hour traffic for a morning appointment at the Hallamshire. She was unable to get anyone on the phone who could tell her exactly what she needed to know because nobody seemed to be in full knowledge of all the facts pertaining to her case. The problem, as was the problem in my wife's case, was the fact that my mother's condition needed the attention of several different departments, all of which appear to have their own independent appointment system and don't seem to communicate with each other. Our local NHS Trust covers four hospitals approximately 20 miles apart yet has a co-ordinated appointments system whereby everybody knows where they should be and at what time. Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, on the other hand, with a smaller area to cover, operates a totally chaotic system which must leave most out-patients totally confused and frustrated. Would it be too much to ask that STH gets its administrative finger out and gets a comprehensively co-ordinated appointments system set-up?