"Continuing shambles at PRU 21st November 2017"

I attended the above clinic for an appointment at 9:30am. As the letter for appointment stated “Eye examinations can be lengthy and take up to two hours. Please make provisions accordingly” I set my car park time at 2 Hours.

Arriving at the clinic for the 9:30am appointment the following timescales took place.

1st Eye test at 10:10am.

2nd Field test at 11: 20am

3rd Seen by Doctor at 12:10am

On enquiring why this had taken so long and exceeded the stated time, I was informed that there was a staff shortage and that the Field Test was only operated by one member of staff.

It is patently obvious that for the Tuesday clinic the Field Test is the main point for the vast number of appointments and that to only allocate one member of staff to operate it was causing the severe delay to the appointment process. Surely such a key area should have had top priority when allocating staff, which would have eased the appointment process and this should have been obvious to the person responsible for the clinic.

On my last visit a similar situation arose, and recently a friend of mine visited the clinic and found exactly the same thing happening.

This situation should be urgently addressed to cut down waiting times, or if not, then patients should either be advised that waiting times could be anything up to 3 to 4 hours, or the number of appointments allocated for that day should be reduced. Not rocket science !!

Fortunately I did not receive a parking fine for overstaying my paid time, but if this should happen again I would expect the Trust to reimburse me for my fine.

I trust that for my next appointment in 8 months time that you will have been able to resolve this unnecessary situation by giving the process some thought to match the resources you have.