More news from the somewhat blunt cutting edge of what is turning out to be a seriously dysfunctional new NHS system for making hospital appointments - 'Choose and Book'.
This morning I was finally able to get through to the call-centre at a time the system was up and running and spoke to a nice lady there who offered to make me my appointment of choice. No sooner, however, had she entered my details than she came on the line to say that unfortunately the hospital I had 'chosen' [refer to last post on the subject for my thoughts on 'informed choice'] had not entered any appointments onto the system and that, therefore, there were none from which she could choose on my behalf!
What kind of hysterical madness is this? My GP - in good faith - looks at a list of hospitals that are supposedly a part of the system, but is not given the information that this particular hospital is disconnected from the network. The call-centre does not itself have a supplementary list of other hospitals and can only refer me back to my GP for further advice.
I speak to a secretary at the surgery - who is very understanding and sympathetic - who explains that the whole system is currently a nightmare and that they are reduced to having to try and book all appointments using both the old system of direct contact of the hospital by the surgery and the new system of patient contact, in the hope that one or other method results in at least one appointment - though two is a possibility and none is the common outcome.
Secretary also confirms that the reason my hospital of choice is unlikely to be live on the system is that it is in the process of closing down and transferring its services elsewhere, with the result that it's highly unlikely I would ever have been seen there in any case. [That is called 'modernisation' in health-speak.] So what this hospital is doing on the 'Choose and Book' system in the first place is anyone's guess.
All that can be suggested is that the diligent secretary will speak to my GP and ask her to provide some further hospitals from which I can 'choose', she [secretary] will then send me a new reference number so that I can return to the call-centre to try once more from scratch.
In the meanwhile she [secretary again] attempts to use the 'Choose and Book' network to sent an internal memo to the GP - but oh sadly cannot now do so as once again the whole computer system has crashed!
"I am now going to do something very radical," she says. "I will take a pen and paper, write this down in longhand and deal with it personally." Good for her and bad for the system that has about as much Spine as the English cricket team!
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