"Constant Reminders of DNA"

As patients of any nhs service, hospital or doctors practice we are constantly reminded of how much it costs the nhs for those patients that do not attend their appointments. Yes this is very frustrating for the rest of us who do attend and find it difficult to get an appointment. However, within the last 3 months I have had so many bad experiences on the other side of the fence I felt I needed to share them because I am only one patient and if this is happening across the board then it clearly needs addressing, why? Because this must cost the nhs a small fortune.

I attended ROH yesterday with my son whom was having an MRI scan, it just so happened that when I left the house my post arrived with a letter to call and book him some physio. As we live in Tamworth I wanted the physio local, as I am aware it can be weekly or fortnightly appointments. Anyway while at the hospital I visited the physio department and explained this to the staff and was told I would need to attend the first physio appointment at the ROH for he physio to refer it to my local hospital. Ok fare enough and I was offered an appointment for the following day - the next appointment after this was the end of March, so of course I didn’t want to wait. So back we went, 30 miles or so to the ROH. The physiotherapist called us and we went into a booth where she explained what was going to happen. At which point I explained we wanted further appointments to be made for our local hospital because of the distance. The physio was lovely but explained we had a wasted journey and she wouldn’t carry out any examination or exercises because this would be done by the new physio once transferred. I explained what I had been told and she said that this was incorrect information and could have been sorted out before me attending the appointment. So not only did the hospital waste my time, traveling expenses and parking fees (not cheap) but they also prevented another patient from receiving the care they needed because we took the appointment. This is happening everywhere not just at ROH, silly mistakes by admin staff are costing the nhs and I can imagine it’s a lot of money.

I’d be happy to explain more here but it’s only fair I leave that review for the hospital in question.