"Impersonal care and a small delay"

I had an appointment for an ultrasound scan at Chapel Allerton Hospital in Leeds. This was a precautionary scan to check out that a couple of lumps on my arms were lipoma and nothing more serious.

I arrived 10 minutes early for my appointment and checked in. There was no mention of a delay at the time I arrived so I sat down and waited. I was called in to my appointment 15 minutes after the due time, with no apology or explanation. I understand that things don't always go to plan and emergencies can happen in hospitals. I'm fine with waiting an extra 15 minutes in these circumstances but some form of words to recognise and explain the minor inconvenience would be nice.

I went into the consulting room with the practitioner and was interested to see a "My name is..." board on the wall - with no name written on it. I have no recollection of the practitioner introducing themselves by name or even using my name at any point during the consultation, other than to confirm my identity at the beginning.

The scan itself was fine and done in what seemed to be a thorough and efficient way.

I work in patient experience in another area and find myself reflecting on the 3 domains of quality after this appointment:

1. Was it safe? I have no reason to think it wasn't.

2. Was it effective? The practitioner seemed to be thorough and did say at the end that they were just harmless lipoma - so I got the information I expected.

3. Was it a good patient experience? No. It felt impersonal - I felt that there was no empathy or contact at a human level.

Maybe the practitioner was having a tough day (though it was only lunchtime) - I don't know.

What I do know is that I expected to be treated as an individual.

I am also concerned that as part of a very large teaching hospital trust, I don't think you set the standards of interaction with patients that future practitioners should be modelling and aspiring to.