A tarnished reputation

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Andrew MacLean
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A tarnished reputation

Postby Andrew MacLean » Mon 12 Jul 2010 3:12 pm

Many users of the site will be bored to distraction by my repeated bugling of the hospital and clinic I attend as the 'Gold Standard' in eye care.

Sadly, new procedures in the labyrinthine and anonymous recesses of the hospital have begun to tarnish a once unblemished reputation for excellence.

My son, The Embalmer, has KC. He copes well and was attending the same clinic. With an appointment approaching he was contacted by the hospital with news that they had to cancel his appointment due to some difficulty with staffing that particular clinic. Fair enough; hospitals can have days when staff sickness makes it impossible for them to cover all their bases.

'The Embalmer' waited for his new appointment, but to his surprise got an entirely different message. Because he had not attended his clinic he had been discharged and the only way back was to seek a new referral from his GP. He was waiting for a new lens.

Is this sort of nonsense a new feature of the NHS? Is it restricted to one hospital with a shiny new computer? Does this only happen in Scotland?

I don't know, but I am sure as anything going to ask.
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Re: A tarnished reputation

Postby Anne Klepacz » Mon 12 Jul 2010 3:54 pm

A dangerous thread to start, Andrew! I'm sure we'll be inundated! No, it doesn't only happen in Scotland. And I'm sure I'm not alone in fearing that a standstill in NHS spending (ie cuts in all but name) may mean more delays on appointments. Though it may mean an end to shiny new computers and the problems they bring!
I hope The Embalmer gets his appointment soon.
Anne

Lizb
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Re: A tarnished reputation

Postby Lizb » Mon 12 Jul 2010 4:52 pm

no it isnt just the scottish hospitals that this happens at Andrew, i personally havent had this happen to me but i do know of people this has happened to and over the past couple of years as well.
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Re: A tarnished reputation

Postby Lynn White » Wed 21 Jul 2010 9:16 pm

Andrew...

I know you are going to throw things at me for this... but I was really sort of hoping you would get a flavour at some point of what happens to everyone else in the NHS system... though this was sharply tempered by not wanting to ill wish you at all!

So far you have been exposed to the best of the NHS system. Most everyone else occasionally gets less than a stellar experience re appointments. As far as the NHS is concerned, this is due to staff shortages or pure over subscription to services. To a KC patient waiting for a new lens, a 3 month appointment can be catastrophic as far as work is concerned. If you have to go on the "re-referral after discharge" merry go round, this can go on for months and months.

Constant experience with these issues over many years is what led me to try and change the sight registration law in the UK. With Keratoconus, if you are OK with glasses or lenses, you are OK. If you have issues with NHS supply of contact lenses, your life can rapidly spiral out of control with work becoming a nightmare. Until you experience it, it is merely a vague possibility that you do not really take on. Once you have a problem, life can get unbearably complicated.

I am shamelessly taking advantage of this subject/post to direct people to my thread on Sight Registration http://www.keratoconus-group.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5697. This is an attempt to change the whole concept of sight registration in the UK in order to make conditions like KC more visible and to make sure the effect of delayed appointments is recognised, amongst other things.

I apologise, Andrew, for hijacking your thread in this way. However, your son's experience is EXACTLY why I started campaigning to get KC properly recognised.

Lynn
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Re: A tarnished reputation

Postby Andrew MacLean » Thu 22 Jul 2010 5:50 pm

Lynn

I don't know why I should be offended by your measured and apt response to this string. I freely acknowledge that our experience at the clinic we attend is not universally shared. This is why I have always described the service as 'gold standard' a mark of how good thing could be everywhere.
I am sorry that the Embalmer has had to experience the same service as an example of how bad things can get; and you may be interested to know that he has abandoned (for now) the NHS and is using a private optometrist.
For my part I have been chastened by his experience but have already begun my own small campaign to restore our clinic to it's firmer excellence. Now that a Scottish MP who was at Edinburgh University with me has committed himself to full time to campaigning , I shall write to him to see if this an issue on which he would like to take up arms.

Andrew
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Re: A tarnished reputation

Postby Ali Akay » Fri 23 Jul 2010 12:52 pm

Hi Andrew,

OK, your son's appointment was changed due to staff shortage,and then, due to human error, he was wrongly noted to have missed his appointment and discharged. Most hospitals discharge patients who miss two appointments in a row, but some have started discharging patients who miss a single agreed appointmernt due to the enermous cost of missed appointments, and the impact on the waiting lists. You could, by all means, challenge the new policy of discharging patients after missing just one appointment, especially if your son hasnt got a history of missing appointments in the past, but recognise this for what it is - simple human error. Hospitals tend to have temps this time of year for holiday cover, so someone obviously made a mistake, and I am sure a phone call to the clinic would resolve the matter without having to write to your MP, etc.

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Re: A tarnished reputation

Postby space_cadet » Fri 23 Jul 2010 4:48 pm

Hi Andrew,

had this happen to me a LOT in the 5 years prior to my KC being diagnosed, it sucks, I really hope by writing some complaint letters you and teh embalmer are able to prevent this happening to anyone else.

Lea x
May09 Diagnosed with KC, March 2010 after a failed transplant it has left me legally blind a long cane user (since 2010) who is blind in a once sighted world

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Re: A tarnished reputation

Postby Lynn White » Sat 24 Jul 2010 11:29 pm

Andrew,

I am being circumspect because, in my experience, the public - and politicians - respond as if the NHS is the total Gold Standard re health treatment in the UK (or even world wide). To even suggest it is not, is to invite approbation. Yes, the NHS is brilliant at dealing with acute illness. But chronic conditions? I think not.

Let me say right now, I have been in favour of equal health treatment for everyone all my life. It is, frankly, why I became an optometrist in the first place. However, I rapidly became disillusioned many years ago when I worked in a Hospital Eye Department because people who suffered from various eye conditions simply could not get treatment fast enough and their work status suffered. Simply put, if you are in work, you need rapid response from the health system in the UK when you are ill. For most other conditions, you can carry on working in some capacity if you have, say, a knee injury etc. If you cannot see, this is an entirely different matter. Years ago, vision was not such a work issue. Now, with the advent of computers, it is a HUGE issue.

Ali.. I KNOW you are a passionate as I about KC. This is not a matter of a single missed appointment. This concerns the whole concept of people reliant on us to give them the vision they need to work and support their families. It is simply NOT acceptable to tell someone they have to wait 3 months to pick up their contact lens/have their next fitting appointment etc. You work within a very progressive PCT area which is well organised. I, as a private practitioner, see many patients who have no decent NHS service at all. What DO you say to someone who cannot see and you know you can fix them up but through the NHS it can take a year while privately you can sort them in a few weeks? It is neither fair nor equitable.

Andrew ... I was worried about offending you because what I say is basically anti NHS, and that is not easy to say in the UK today. Whatever happens, we all pretend the NHS is brilliant, if flawed. However... deep breath.... the NHS is great for acute illness or chronic conditions that have wonderful private funding (e.g. cancer) but falls down when responding to conditions that attract less publicity.

Poor Vision is such a condition. It is not life threatening, therefore no-one can appeal to the public's better nature (see the recent campaigns for cancer on the TV). However, it really REALLY impacts on people's lives.

The NHS simply does not recognise that KC is an issue. The only way it will is if people affected by it say so.

If you want to help... text me on 07884 015910

Lynn
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Re: A tarnished reputation

Postby Ali Akay » Sun 25 Jul 2010 5:56 pm

Hi Lyn

I was simply reading Andrew's post which stated that his son's appointment at the hospital he regards very highly was cancelled, and, due to human error he was discharged from the clinic. He made no comments about how long "The embalmer" had been waiting for this appointment and what difficulties the cancellation of the appointment had caused him. He was concerned that perhaps the hospital he was so happy with was going downhill, and I simply pointed out that, on the face of it, this looked like a simple human error and it would be unfair to read anymore into it. His post seems to have been hijacked into a discussion about the whole process of HES contact lens provision which we all know is less than ideal in most parts of the country. What needs to be pointed out is the large number of patients who have been missing their hospital appointments lately, presumably due to the hot weather! Its not uncommon for patients to miss their first appointment in the contact lens clinic either which always puzzles me! Perhaps we should start a campaign urging patients to refrain from missing their appoinments due to World Cup, hot weather etc etc. I am sorry, but, we need to remember that practitioners who work in the Hospital Sector primarily do so because they are passionate about what they do and they try to do their best within the resources available to them. Most patients realise this and appreciate the efforts made to help them, but, unfortunately, it's not possible to avoid cancelling appointments from time to time for all sorts of legitimate reasons. In an ideal world, all patients would be seen at short notice and fitted with the appropriate lenses within a short space of time. Unfortunately it does come down to cost and the only way I could see things improving would be for NHS to fund contact lens fitting in the community with obvious cost implications. Despite pledges about NHS being spared from cuts there's a lot of talk about efficiency savings etc and I feel it'd be very difficult to get any new initiative off the ground if there's a price tag attached to it. Whether the proposed re-organisation of the NHS would help remains to be seen. We seem to be returning to the GP fundholding system, and, in theory, patient's GP could refer him/her for contact lens fitting privately as effectively the GP practice would finance it. So, perhaps there's light at the end of the tunnel! The problem is, with all other demands on GPs' budget, how high a priority would KC be?

Lizb
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Re: A tarnished reputation

Postby Lizb » Sun 25 Jul 2010 7:23 pm

what actually gets me is that my opticians, GP, dentist, hairdressers (plus other appointment places) are all able to send a text message to remind me of an appointment, so is this not possible from the hospital clinics. It is all done automatically from computer systems. That would make sure that people who believe that they have had an appointment cancelled would know that actually they still have an appointment slot (thus avoiding The Embalmer's problem) and would remind people to at least phone up and cancel the day before if they know they wont be able to make the appointment thus maybe freeing up clinic time and staff not having to rush through patients.
We all know how useless the postal service can be as well, so a letter being sent out with hospital appointment details on can easily be lost/delayed in the postal system.
Life is too short for drama & petty things!
So laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly!


I´m not strange, I´m just not normal

Every sixty seconds you spend angry, upset or mad is a full minute of happiness you never get back


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