What a system!!! As you may be aware Laura seems to havea problem running and seems to gallop rather than run. Useful for a horse but not right in a girl. Early February, we saw the GP who looked at the 'Choose and Book' system at the surgery which gave us the one choice of Salisbury Hospital which is about 35 miles away. As we had no choice, I booked the appointment. 3 weeks later, we got a phone call from the surgery saying that Salisbury had contacted them to say they were not accepting patients from our area and had not doen so since December 2006. She would be referred to the same hospital where I have my chemo and is 5 miles away. Much more sensible.
On saturday I got a letter saying I needed to phone one of two numbers within two weeks to book an appointment for her. I did this on monday. The first number I tried gave a very complicated message but basically told me to phone another 2 numbers. I did this and had to leave a message on the answerphone. To be fair, she did phone back in a couple of minutes but she was surprised I was phoning as Laura's appointment had alredy been made and had been sent out. When I questioned why the first letter had been sent out she said it was always sent out as it was generated by the computer!! Don't they know how to reset it then???!! Tuesday -the letter arrived giving me the same tiem and date as I had been told the day before - miracles do happen even in the NHS. This told me that I had to phone to confirm the appointment or it would be given to someone else. I phoned the number on the letter and got through to another hospital which is part of the same Trust but on a different site. She could not find the appointment and then she realised that was because Laura's appointment was at the main hospital and she couldn't access their lists!! She also couldn't give me the number to phone either. Utterly demoralised by this whole botched thing, I phoned PALS and explained the situation. She confirmed the appointment for me and I've sent her copies of the letters so that they can sort this out so other parents don't have the same problem. Of course, the hospital trust blames the community trust for this - I don't care who is to blame but I've made 4 phonecalls to try to sort this out - no, actually 6 as I phoned Salisbury and the GP surgery and the NHS have sent me 2 letters when 1 would do both with incorrect telephone numbers on.
Please tell me it is not just me that struggles with the NHS and I even work for them!!!