"Appalling"

Anything else?

Something needs to be done about the telephone system within the hospitals. One goes round and round and achieves nothing. The telephone numbers are often wrong as in the case of the Fracture Clinic stating that one has to ring an 0845 number and then when one rings that number one is told to ring 01227 868686 which then directs you back to where you started.One never speaks to anybody and there seems to be an overabundance of telephone answering machines to leave messages that no-one calls back on. One is left assuming that the hospital has no staff , one realises that the way to cut waiting lists is to ignore patients as this makes the stats. look good.

For elderly people, people with hearing problems the system is just designed to confuse. Lack of consideration for the people who pay the wages of the management and staff is of the least important. The voice recognition system is appalling as the voice does not understand what is said to it and generally says" I cannot help you I will transfer you to an operator". The best method is for an operator to answer the call in the first instance. Why is the main switchboard at Canterbury ? Each hospital should be contactable by itself as the Canterbury operators have no knowledge of the other hospitals. As the telephone is the first point of contact the appalling way in which it is run does not give one much faith in the ability of the hospitals.