"Trying to get an appointment at the breast clinic"

Repeated attempts to get through to the Breast Clinic reception to make an appointment and not once has my call been answered.

This seems to be a common problem and when I've attended the clinic in person I've witnessed the staff ignoring a ringing phone on several occasions, even though they were just chatting amongst themselves. I will now need to go down in person to the reception to secure an appointment - not impressed!

Update - after finally speaking to someone in the breast clinic reception, they try to fob me off with getting referred through my GP, which I know I don't need to do since I've already attended the clinic several times and I was instructed by the clinic doctor last time I was there to phone in direct and make an appointment, should the problem reoccur. They then tell me that they can't book me in without know the name of the consultant I'm under, information I don't have since I've always dealt with the doctor.

Apparently they can't obtain the consultant's information and I need to phone "the secretaries" to find out who my consultant is before I then need to call back to the breast clinic who would then be able to give me an appointment.

Why is it being made so difficult for patients to receive the care they're entitled to?