PigBlog

Anyone that knows me well will know that phrases like ‘proccess efficiency’ and ‘streamlined business processes’ will send me running for a claw hammer with which to viciously beat the speaker. So often today “efficiency” means “cutting the funding”, and anything done to “benefit customer service” is quite the reverse: it’s little more than an excuse to trot out a load of managment bullshit, knacker the service, and give someone’s private sector buddies a pile of cash.

However:

By dear sweet baby Jebus, Walsall Manor NHS needs *something* doing to stop wasting time and money quite so well. It’s so stunningly poor that it looks bad compared to the rest of the NHS.

I’ve had some experience myself (I gave up trying to get any useful contact out of the Physiotherapy lot last year), but recent experience with my dear Stymistress just drives it home. It was a routine appointment, for a regular clinic- not an emergency, so you’d think that you could run appointments roughly to time. After all, if you’ve done it for a while, you’d know on average how long an appointment takes. Build in a few minutes reserve, book as many appointments as you can fit in.

So then, we turn up at around 3:30. The appointment is timed to be at 3:55. See that? That’s planning, that is: we left 1:05 for the journey, knowing it should take around 45-50 min. You take account of what is likely, leave a little room to move, and work to that.

This time, we took the appointment letter with us, knowing from bitter experience that the reception staff are seemingly unable to look a patient up on the PC straight in front of them. This reception is in a corridor, some way from the clinic, but it still only handles 2 clinics. It’s also secondary to another reception desk at the entrance, that seems to serve no purpose at all. At this one, a folder of records is shifted to a pile, and we’re given directions to another waiting area. It’s packed, and one group of people are complaining people are being seen out of order, as well as late, as the records seem to get shuffled between the 1st desk and this area. This area, incidentally, is staffed by nurses. They’re working quite hard, but most of it involves shuffling the piles of records about and trying to find seating for patients. There isn’t enough, which is why I’m typing this with the laptop leaning up the steering wheel of my car in the expensive, shit car park. The records sit on a trolley that is far too small, so they have to be shuffled and reshuffled. They’re also quite heavy, by the looks of things. The nurses spend little time performing tests (you know- the caring for patients bit they trained for), because they have to ‘organise’ the flow of patients in and out, despite the fact that everyone has already checked in. There’s not enough room to move, and as per usual it’s heated well above 20 degrees, so the energy efficiency is good too.

The last time I visited with another family member, it was the same: Pointless first reception, a second one that checks you have arrived, then trained nurses doing folder shuffling and showing people which room to go into.

It’s now 17:30. 1:35 after the appointment time, and I’m still in the car. The 2 hour ticket we bought ‘in case’ will run out soon, and Stymistress is still sat in an overheated, cramped waiting room waiting for a trained nurse to show her which door to go through, in between shuffling paper.

Blimey. I thought I’d seen inefficiency at work.

I’m glad to say that the QE for example, is better. Yes, it’s understaffed and underfunded, but it’s not so hopeless. Anyone tried Walsall’s “Choose and Book” service, that gives you no choice at all?

I’m not wanting to have a pop at the NHS or it’s staff: I’ve had some excellent care and seen some hugely capable, hardworking staff. But how is this any way to run things?

I can expect this if it was A&E: A&E has an entirely unpredictable workload, yet operates a seemingly sensible arrangment: you go to a reception desk, and your details are taken. You then go through triage, and urgent cases get prioritised. The rest of you get seen in order.

So then, am I way off the mark, and just not understanding something, or can someone in charge not find their backside with both hands and a roadmap? If I am wrong, please educate me.

[edit]

The consultant apologised, and said they had lost some staff that day. This explains the lateness, but not the sheer waste…

This entry was posted on Monday, June 14th, 2010 at 20:23 and is filed under Life, Politics, Rants . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.