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Unnecessary waste of time and money

Posted By Indigo932

"Unnecessary waste of time and money"

About: Devon Access and Referral Team (DART)

(as the patient),

I have just rang the Devon DART Service and it seems to me to be an unnecessary waste of time and money. They were unable to directly book a clinic appointment for my daughter. I know they are there to give you a choice but all they could do was give me another phone number to ring where I have to sit in a queue or listen to music again.

I just want an appointment at my local hospital not a choice. Why can’t I just be sent a letter from my local clinic with appointment details on and the DART details if I would like to go somewhere different?

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Responses

Response from Susan Pearce, Project Support Manager, DART (Devon Access & Referral Team), NHS Devon 13 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Susan Pearce
Project Support Manager, DART (Devon Access & Referral Team),
NHS Devon

Information support, communications and patient involvement for DART

Submitted on 11/06/2010 at 12:15

Dear ‘Indigo932’,

Thank you for taking the time to let us know about your experience of using our service. I’m sorry that you are unhappy with the system and did not find it useful.

As you say, the point of the team is to offer patients a choice and one of the reasons that we ask people to call us, even though they may already know which hospital they want to go to, is to offer them a choice of date and time as well. I realise that in your case this isn’t what happened because you had to call the hospital directly and I’m sorry about that, it must have added greatly to your frustration. However, I can assure you that this is the case in only a small number of referrals and the vast majority of services in and around Devon we can book for you when you phone in. We are working hard to get all services directly bookable and hope to have achieved this soon.

Once again, I’m sorry that the service wasn’t able to meet your needs and thank you for contacting us – we are working to improve things and all feedback is gratefully received.

Kind regards,

Susan

If you would like to talk to someone at DART about any remaining issues with your referral you can contact our Choose & Book Helpline on 01626 883888.

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