Share review of Chapel Allerton Hospital

Chapel Allerton Hospital 2016-10-13 Person 3 5 0

The service by the staff was absolutely fine, once it was available. Unfortunately, the 2.30 pm appointment for today was cancelled earlier today (we were eventually told that the relevant doctor had an emergency so that their outpatient surgery for today was cancelled, although I am not clear when it was cancelled), and no notice was given to us before arrival for the 2.30pm appointment. Since patients are encouraged to book in electronically on arrival at the main entrance, we did so and went, as directed, to the relevant waiting area. There were about six patients already there. From time to time, a patient would approach the receptionists for that area, but were merely told that if they had booked in at the main entrance, then they would be called in due course - no names were asked for or provided. Once all patients who had arrived earlier than us had been called to their appointments (after we had been waiting for 50 minutes), as well as two patients who had arrived later than us (called after we had been there for say 30 minutes and 60 minutes), we checked with the staff at the waiting area. It was only then, 60 minutes after we had noted our arrival, that we were identified as no longer having an appointment that would be honoured. If some member of staff made an honest mistake, then I have no desire to make any complaint about the error - the staff are under pressure, and mistakes happen. However, this feels much more like a systems error. Why were we directed to go to the waiting area on booking in, if the appointment had already been cancelled? Why, (since the appointment had been cancelled, and no-one had been able to notify us about this), were the reception staff at the waiting area not encouraged to identify us there, for instance at the time of the appointment, or shortly thereafter? I feel very strongly that this was completely unacceptable: - I had to take three hours out of my working day; - another doctor juggled their schedules to ensure that my daughter was seen anyway, to cover for the colleague who had been called away; - what should have been a 30 minute appointment became two hours at the hospital; - I very nearly overran on the two hour parking ticket; - what could have been a reassuring visit to confirm that there is no malignancy present has potentially increased the NHS workload by taking the safer option of a recall appointment in 6 months' time, due to the absence of the relevant specialist; - potentially staff time will be wasted following up on what went wrong with the appointments system on this occasion. Since repetition of this set of circumstances for another patient with a cancelled appointment would be likely to lead to similar problems, delays and increased workloads, I feel that it is very important to understand what went wrong today and how it can be prevented in future, by changing protocols for appointment management.