"Patient transport limitations in NHS Highlands"

The Patient Transport Line has so much gumpf before we get to the bit we need, for example loads of stuff about rescheduling your appointment so a friend or relative can take you, go to all these public transport websites to find public transport - we would not be phoning patient transport if we could travel any other way!

It stresses me out - I am old, alone, no friends, no family and I have to listen to a message several minutes long before I get to the "Press 1, Press 2" etc. Then we have to listen to more junk on which area we live in. In the olden days, when the NHS worked better than now, we could phone LOCAL offices and it worked so much better for patients.

All this centralisation, to save money, must cost a lot as we just can't get through and I wonder how much is wasted by transport not being cancelled or rescheduled because of the difficulty this system causes?

The patient transport will only transport us if our appointment is between 11 and 2.30, which means when the hospitals send us letters with appointments outside of these times, we then have hours on the phone trying to reschedule our appointment to a time that fits with patient transport. And even when I get the latest outpatient appointment I can, I am still late because patient transport doesn't work around appointment times, they work around their start times.

So, they start at 8am, then they have to do checks, then they drive to collect people, often collecting me only an hour before my appointment, when it takes 2.5 hours to drive to the hospital.

My sister got patient transport to Inverness, 2.5 hours each way, missed her appointment because patient transport was so late getting her there, and the hospital refused to see her for an urgent scan, and she had to go all the way home and return again the next day. What a waste of effort.