"West Kent Eye Clinic is a shambles"

My mother has to attend the eye clinic every 3 or 4 months and every time we visit I bite my tongue and sit on my hands to stop me complaining about it. But enough is enough and this time I feel compelled to complain.

Each time there are three stages to the appointment..... the 5-minute eye chart test, a 2-minute photograph of the back of the eye and a 10-minute consultation with the doctor. This should take in total17 minutes. Even allowing for waits between the three stages, it should take no longer than an hour.

However usually we are there for at least 2 hours. Today it was over three hours!

We waited 90 minutes before we were even called to stage 1.

This is an unacceptable time to wait when most of the patients are elderly and have back problems sitting on hard seats. One lady told me she had been up since 6.30 am waiting for hospital transport to being her to the hospital and by then it was midday. She had not had anything to eat or drink all morning. Expecting patients to sit all those hours without a drink (even for 3 hours let alone longer) is not acceptable. Most are physically disabled, so cannot go off to find one and in any case risk missing being called for their slot. Not only that but, as I could not get a disabled parking space outside the hospital (they are always full) nor even a normal parking space,

I had to keep running back and forth to Sainsburys where I had parked to top up my parking ticket as the time ran over the allotted two hours.

In total I paid £4 for 4 hours there.

I cannot for the life of me see why there is such a long wait.

If you ask at reception you are told they don't know and to ask a nurse. If you ask a nurse, they don't know the reason either.

At no time are we kept abreast of any delay by anyone, despite what the answer to a comment below implies.Other patients were showing signs of annoyance at their wait too and a lady next to me voluntarily started to complain to me. It turned out she had the same appointment time as my mother, as did others. Why invite so many along all at the same time, if you cannot shift them through the process quickly? This clinic is seriously disorganised and the managers or consultants ought to be addressing this problem, rather than turning a blind (pardon the pun) eye to it.

I can see the problem and how to solve it as clear as day. Why can't they?