"Outpatients waiting times at Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt hospital"

About: Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital

(as the patient),

Recently I attended for an outpatients appointment at Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt hospital. I arrived mid morning and was seen finally over two hours later. The reason appeared to be that there were insufficient nurses for removing stitches and dressings from people like me. And two patients fainted during the morning.

OK. People faint. This has happened before and will happen again.

So put on more staff to cope with this, or book less patients in.

Three years ago I submitted much the same complaint and received a standardised impersonal reply. It seems like nothing has happened to improve the situation.

There seemed to be very little attempt to inform waiting patients about delays. Apparently a nurse did tell us, but before I arrived, ie not during my nearly two hour wait.

I think that the looks of resignation and boredom and frustration on patients' faces will soon translate into spreading the word about the hospital's attitude to waiting patients. Please work to improve this, and involve patients.

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Responses

Response from The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust 12 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Submitted on 22/05/2012 at 13:59
Published on Care Opinion at 15:45


Thank you for your feedback regarding your experience in the outpatient department recently. The Deputy Director of Operations apologises for the long delays in the clinic on this occasion.

To address this problem, the Trust will be investing in patient calling screens within the next 12 months which will allow any clinic delays to be clearly displayed on the screens. There will be several screens strategically placed around the patient waiting areas.

The Trust does try to increase the availability of nurses to avoid delays however this is not always possible and occasionally complicated by urgent patients who need treatment on an unscheduled basis. In the interim outpatients staff will endeavour to put up more notices advising patients of delays whilst we await the patient calling system.”

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