National Health Service

I am a staunch supporter of the British National Health Service, but…

I believe that I may be suffering from early onset dementia.

This is not helped when I receive a telephone reminder for an appointment at the hospital out-patients department on 17th January that I know nothing about.

I do have an appointment for 22nd January.

So I try to telephone the appointments department at my local hospital,to find out the reality.

I am directed to Accident and Emergency. They put me back to the main switchboard. I am now re-directed… for 7 minutes… until the line disconnects.

I re-dial. I am once again put through to Accident and Emergency. They put me back to main switchboard and the line disconnects almost immediately.

Four days later I receive a letter advising me that my appointment for 22nd January has been rescheduled to 17th January. Now it all makes sense.

But, with the expectation of an appointment on 22nd January, I have arranged a blood test on 16th January. It looks like the results they need will now not be available by the time I go for my appointment with the consultant.

How do they expect to provide a reasonable service with this chaos?