Make it make sense - hospital rant

Source: I work in Hospital Admin, so your hospital may be different.

Basically the way a clinic is usually set up is that it lasts half a day and is broken up into 20 minute slots. Now each of the slots is usually taken up by one patient. However if there is an emergency rather than bumping a patient from one of those slots (given that they may have had to wait months to get a routine appointment.) they'll book additional patients in and count on either working faster through their regular patients or getting help from a resident doctor who will usually be a trainee to see some of the extras. 

Also if the clinic has to be cut short for any reason (say the clinician is required to do emergency surgery at short notice.) They may ask patients to come in early and see them on a first-come first-served basis. Or on sadly common occasions if they want to get home early on a Friday they will sometimes ask the admin team to ring patients to get them to come in earlier so they can finish early for the weekend. 

My understanding was that 4 of us had been booked for half past 1 and then more people booked for 2. They obviously couldn't get through us fast enough as I was waiting an hour and a half. It wasn't an appointment with a doctor but with a nurse who consults with the doctor when needed. It is just the one nurse that sees the patients for that clinic so I can't see any logic to booking us all in at the same time. 

My understanding was that 4 of us had been booked for half past 1 and then more people booked for 2. They obviously couldn't get through us fast enough as I was waiting an hour and a half. It wasn't an appointment with a doctor but with a nurse who consults with the doctor when needed. It is just the one nurse that sees the patients for that clinic so I can't see any logic to booking us all in at the same time. 

Agreed, I think that things could and maybe should be a lot better.

I've been told to sit back down by nurses, so moving about isn't an option.

I do understand about not charging people for missed appointments, I would be against it too, most of our doctors and hospital send a text the day before asking you to reply yes or no as to whether you still want the appointment. But things can still happen, the bus dosent' turn up, or the car won't start, or you get stuck behind an accident.

The thing that's bugged me in the past is appointment letters turning up a day or so before the appointment is booked for and if you don't get the letter you go to the back of the queue, which is a bit harsh when you may not have been at home to get the letter. The other thing is the delay there seems to be between letter being written and printed and their arrival date, often as much as ten days or a fortnight

I went thro' a phase of resenting patients - quickly... it's like blaming a wall for falling on you when it has been pushed over by someone the other side of it.  Those who can't see that are lacking in imagination or can't see the bigger picture.

Many services rely on no-shows as they provide time to do the admin or simply de-compress from the relentless nature of the work.

As regards why people do not attend, as you say, there are genuine reasons.  To prevent them might be intruding on people's civil liberties.  And if a charge were introduced with intention to reduce them how could that be fairly done without potentially setting up a service where the rich get better service than the poor...

If I'm uncomfortable where I'm sitting I try to remember that I can get up and move around.

Best wishes

I get that if there's an emergency then there will be a delay or cancellation, but it annoys the hell out of me when you're left sat waiting for ages. Is my time not important too? 

Another thing is that I find sitting for any length of time really really uncomfortable and often my back will go into spasm and my legs start trembling, it dosent' help that the chairs are so uncomfortable and theres so little room to move around. Often you're a trip hazzard as you're sat in a corridor and people are rushing about.

It often feels like as far as many of the staff are concerned the patients are in the way of the smooth running of the hospital.

I guess it dosent' help when people don't turn up either and there are others waiting for appointments, it's so inconsiderate and a waste of everybodies time, I know that sometimes there will be genuine reasons for no shows, but often it just feels like laziness and lack of curtesy