"Informed I missed an appointment"

I am a GP - so I know first hand how diabolically some out-patients clinics are mis-booked from my own patients. This time however I was on the receiving end myself. Recently, I received a call from the Eye Casualty Dept to inform me I had missed my appointment the day before. This is wholly untrue. I was spoken to in an extremely patronising tone by one of the Staff Nurses who point blank refused to believe me and in the end hung up on me. Following my GP referral I was phoned and offered Friday or Saturday, I chose Saturday because I put my patients first - Saturday was the obvious choice. I was referred by my GP on the Tuesday for what may be a branch retinal artery occlusion. Ideally I would need to be seen within a day so even Friday wasn’t ideal.

Why on earth would I miss an appointment? Clearly the Opthalmic Dept screwed up big time at their end. I realised from my experience with this Staff Nurse just how impotent a patient can be when faced with Secondary Care. In my own practice in such a situation we would always agree to see a patient as an extra and apologise for the error irrespective of which party was at fault. But RCHT? Nope. So I have had to accept a Monday afternoon appointment - which means cancelling my own patients that afternoon. All because of a clerical error made in the Eye Cas. Do I expect any apology or redress? Do I heck. I doubt anyone reads these feedback comments and even if they do, will they care? Doubtless I will be seen as a trouble maker. I certainly will not hold back when discussing with my many colleagues my experience. What I would like would be for this email to be forwarded to the Opthalmic Clinical Director and the RCHT Chief Executive. How else will systems, care, respect, improve?