please empty your brain below

Glad to see your taxes and mine are being put to such good use ...

Oh, and does the six month (or more!) wait mean that the porridge diet is working?

dg writes: totally unconnected to porridge, this

In my experience you will get another appointment but it will then be shifted back several times...I'd think it'll be about a year before you're back there again.

Whatever, glad they think you're OK enough not to be seen for a while!

I for one cannot wait for 2012.

Introducing new IT systems which are supposed to 'streamline procedures' but actually make a right mess of things seems to be a common occurrence in the NHS at the moment. The problem is that the powers that be don't seem to understand how these systems are supposed to work.

The government has spent millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on new IT projects. However, as we know, a lot of these haven't exactly been successful, and indeed, as you have seen DG, may well make things less efficient. Sometimes, this inefficiency may spill over into incompetence, as we saw with the child benefit data loss several months back.

Personally, I think that the public sector needs to be far more rigorous when it comes to testing new IT systems. Often, it seems to me that much of the public sector is upgrading computer systems just for the sake of it, even if the new project will patently cut efficiency levels.

Of course, there's always the possibility that your hospital is having teething problems. However, if something isn't broke, why try to fix it?

I had the opposite problem recently. I wanted to postpone an appointment for a couple of weeks, but the computer was so much on the ball that it would not allow this to be done.

Its reason? Well, it would put my wait for an appointment outside the prescribed parameters and so the hospital would "lose face," or whatever the appropriate phrase is when you are kept waiting longer than government guidelines allow for an appointment.

These things really do rule our lives, don't they? If only they could actually do it better than we can!

I feel your pain. Having spent a good proportion of the past decade of my life in hospital I have seen this kind of thing all to often. Great Ormond Street were always brilliant - it was a local hospitals that were terrible. I took much dislike to being told that I failed to attend an appointment that never existed. So pissed off in fact that I got my local MP involved. He fixed it all.

Like you, I always feel very out of place when I go to hospital. Most of my appointments are with people who normally deal with those on the way out, over the age of 60 (commonly rheumatologists), and I am normally the youngest person there by a good 40 or 50 years. I do often wonder how many of them think I am in the wrong department.

You are quite right, a nurse 100 years ago could have done a better job.

I suspect systems designed to try to do too many individual tasks as defined by too many people. That, and people being sold solutions looking for problems (as with the ID card, but let's not go there).

It can work though. Last week I had an appointment with a consultant. Needed blood tests and arrange an xray for asap. Took form to blood test waiting area and hardly had time to sit down before I was called in. Went to xray department. When I gave my name the receptionist already knew all about me as the doctor had used the computer and within a few minutes the appointment was set up to my satisfaction.
I seem to remember reading recently that health service IT worldwide is the most difficult to install.

www.bupa.co.uk

Comments seem to be a bit down with all this going to Coventry and the hospital, maybe you need to post some more of the controversial kittens ...

Or better still lets all extol the virtues and many different variations of good old porridge again ... it cures everything

Doctors hate these systems too! So much time spent fiddling around, exactly as you describe, with endless drop down menus. And of course the supposedly exhaustive menu doesn't have the option you want, so your patient can't have the operation until you pick up the phone and do it the old and sensible way...

Perhaps we can experiment with getting kittens to eat porridge?

Or get them making it.

It sounds as though the managers and "solutions" designers didn't spend enough time finding out what it was like working at the coalface. It's a common failing.
One Saturday morning, in my then place of work, we were short-staffed, with a lengthening queue at the public counter. The general manager decided to lend the counter staff a hand. It couldn't be that difficult - could it?
After a few minutes he was heard to mutter "Stuff this" and retreated to his office.

Oh the joys of 'made for purpose' IT systems.

Many years ago, like 1981, I was studying Information Science. We had a visit from some computer-savvy Drs who'd designed the system for Plymouth General Hospital.

On that scale it worked.

Usually IT systems tend not to work too well cos they're bought in by people who won't actually be using them, who know about computing (a bit) but who don't know about interacting with patients, or the kinds of information Drs, nurses, & labs all require.

Our local libraries had a new IT system recently - designed & built by & for librarians. Once they got over the initial 'newness' they all agreed it was better than the previous system.

So, courage, DG. Come the appointment in 6 months time - they may have it sorted. Or they may have employed a few more people with appointment books!

Many years ago my first job in IT was putting systems into NHS hospitals. It was clear that no one wanted them for a load of reasons and a lot of the problems we had was the people on the shop floor writing things in a diary then putting things on the system the next day then complaining when the midnight bed-return report was out by a few people. Management was no better and you'd spend hours arguing about cost only to see a lowly manager get into a nice NHS bought Jaguar car. The reason for those dumb terminals? A lot were stolen by people who thought they were PC. Must have been fun when they got home and turned them on.

I still have friends who work with the NHS - the same issues are still there. Over ambitious systems trying to support a madness of reporting to government.

The RLH has *just* introduced the new EPR system, one that the other hospitals in the area (Newham and Homerton) have been using for ages.

It was brought in less than three weeks previous to today, so depending on when you went the staff are probably still trying to work things out.

In answers to the other commentors above, NHS IT projects are almost without fail utter nightmares as they run late, over budget and have to educate staff who's job is giving drugs and washing bedpans, not being computer literate.

It's an utter nightmare, and makes little difference when it involves NHS IT departments as well.

I'm not entirely sure its possible to put the blame on any one group of people. I mean...

"Solution Designers"
I hate the use of the word solution in this context anyway, but realistically if an IT System is necessary, then it is not a solution (think solution: 1+1=2). Systems are there to help with complex issues which aren't necessarily solvable and just need dealing with.

But these people get tarred all the time, and the companies they work for get blames for overspends, when actually a much bigger issue is in the bid process.

"Procurement people" always seem to pick the lowest bid (even if it is massively below competing bids).... wouldn't that scream that the offer might not be to do all the work they were looking for... hence limited systems and reluctance to pay anymore...











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