"Appalling go somewhere else"

What I liked

The person who I saw explained why I needed to use the eye drops and what the consequences of not using them were - something that previous Dr's hadn't done. He also suggested that I have a minor procedure to remove eyelashes which were touching my eyes.

What could be improved

I wasn't called from main waiting area until 10 minutes after my appointment time. The eye test room has no privacy - two patients sat being tested at the same time.

When the nurse took me through to the inner waiting area she asked me who I was seeing and then informed me that he didn't even have a clinic that afternoon so she would find out who I was seeing. This was surprising as my appointment time and date had been changed four or five times in the previous few months (this was a six month follow up appointment).

I eventually was seen around 5pm (my appointment was at 4pm). The Dr didn't have my notes - I have had several surgeries/procedures on my eye lids over the last 22 years and have several conditions - yet he had no details of them. The Dr (who wasn't one I had seen before was good - did tests/examinations needed and gave good advise and explained why I needed to use drops and how my sight would be improved, and recommended a minor procedure as my eyelashes were rubbing my eyes. The next problem was that I couldn't book the procedure as it was after 5pm so he advised me to phone appointments the beginning of the following week.

Anything else?

When I phoned the appointments person said it just said I was due to be booked a follow up out patients appointment in six weeks - when I said no I was due a procedure in outpatients she looked at the detail and agreed. She put me through to someone in the eye clinic who wasn't particularly helpful - I was also concerned about my latex allergy.

After 3 calls to outpatients appointments I was finally told an appointment had been booked, so I was transferred to the eye clinic extension again to tell them again that I have a latex allergy, I also asked who was going to be performing the procedure and after about 10 minutes of question I finally got the nurse to admit the it was to be performed by a uSHO. When I queried whether the SHO would be supervised the nurse assured me she would be but when pressed admitted the only other person actually in the room would be a nurse. She could not tell me how many times this dr had done this procedure, or how long they had been qualified. The best I got was she had been in the department several months. I am now in contact with PALS who seem to think it is fine for a very junior dr to perform unsupervised procedures involving needles and electricity millimetres from patients eyes. PCH might be a teaching hospital but you expect juniors to be closely supervised at all times when performing procedures - unless PCH can afford huge compensation payouts when the something goes wrong which it is bound to with the way they operate.