"When it's good it's good but when it's bad it's..."

What I liked

My experience of Tameside varies from excellent to totally unacceptable. I am treated by several consultants, needed numerous tests, operations and procedures. Most go fairly well to okayish & most staff are decent & try to help. Gynaecology & Cardiology have been fantastic even when things go wrong i.e. turning up for appointment but consultant not there, waiting lists for appointments in Cardiology are dismal. The Hearing Centre were just fantastic – nice staff, great advice, knew what they were doing etc etc & I got my hearing aids in less than 4 weeks after hearing test & that was amazing considering test was done at another hospital.

What could be improved

I've has several problems similar to the following so it's certainly not a one off for Tameside. When Tameside work together with the patient then fine but if a problem arises they seem unable or even unwilling to sort it out.

The following is my experience with the Dental Surgery Dept.

- Early summer 2011 my own dentist referred me to Tameside for several extractions as I have Osteopenia & it’s affected my teeth. I also need to be under a full anesthetic.

- Booked for operation in November so go for pre-op just before. The nurse rubber stamped me as fit for surgery but shortly after I receive an urgent letter to come in to see an anaesthetist.

- The anaesthetist postponed my surgery as I was also a patient in cardiology for high BP & arrhythmia. The cardiology tests showed nothing really bad was wrong and I was soon to be discharged back to my GP for care.

- Just 3 weeks later a different anaesthetist cleared me as healthy for my other surgery I was waiting for on my shoulder. The surgery went ahead Dec 2011 with no problems.

- On several different occasions during the following months I tried to get a dental op date but I kept being told my surgery was still postponed but definitely not cancelled.

- Finally after being discharged properly from cardiology I approached dental yet again. Receptionists said 'yes we know about you we just need letter from cardiology. But just this month I called in at the dental reception yet again (full year after initial referral) to ask for progress only to be told ‘sorry your op is cancelled and now you have to ask your own dentist to re-refer you back to our service which means you'll have to wait at least 18 weeks to be seen by the dental consultant and then a further wait for ? weeks for a pre-op and lastly wait for the actual surgery date.’

Anything else?

No one will take responsibility and in the meanwhile I am left suffering in agony on almost permanent antibiotics because I keep developing massive abscesses in my jaw every few weeks.

I have several less serious, but still upsetting complaints, against Tameside but don’t wish to bore you all. I really think it depends with which department you deal with; paper pushers for example cause more problems than they solve. But the admin in the dental dept has been shockingly useless.