A Grumble
I am feeling rather peed off with both my clinic and Lewisham Hospital at the moment. While I know I should be very grateful that I get free (ish) maternity care and that Lewisham is one of the hospitals that offer a free nuchal scan at 12 weeks, it's not much bloody good to me when they screw it up so that at almost 12 weeks I still have no appointment.
I went to register my pregnancy when I was just over 4 weeks pregnant, I've had my booking in appointment at 7 weeks, at 9 weeks, having heard nothing about my scan, I called the hospital to check on it, at 11 weeks having still heard nothing, I called back only to be told that the hospital hadn't received a referral for me yet.
My clinic claim they faxed it on the 17th August. The hospital claim they never received it. Quite why they couldn't tell me when I called at 9 weeks that they hadn't yet had a referral I don't know. I got into a bit of a fight with the woman at the hospital who was telling me there was nothing she could do, that it wouldn't be fair to bump my referral (which had now been re-faxed) to the top of the list - despite that fact that it is due to their bleeding incompetence that I am in this situation in the first place - and I'd just have to wait until she'd worked her way through all the referrals and see if there were any appointments still available. So I am still without an appointment and feeling rather pissed off with the whole thing.
I'm going to give them until the end of this week before I start really getting annoyed. Not that it will get me very far, if my phone call the other day is anything to go by.
I went to register my pregnancy when I was just over 4 weeks pregnant, I've had my booking in appointment at 7 weeks, at 9 weeks, having heard nothing about my scan, I called the hospital to check on it, at 11 weeks having still heard nothing, I called back only to be told that the hospital hadn't received a referral for me yet.
My clinic claim they faxed it on the 17th August. The hospital claim they never received it. Quite why they couldn't tell me when I called at 9 weeks that they hadn't yet had a referral I don't know. I got into a bit of a fight with the woman at the hospital who was telling me there was nothing she could do, that it wouldn't be fair to bump my referral (which had now been re-faxed) to the top of the list - despite that fact that it is due to their bleeding incompetence that I am in this situation in the first place - and I'd just have to wait until she'd worked her way through all the referrals and see if there were any appointments still available. So I am still without an appointment and feeling rather pissed off with the whole thing.
I'm going to give them until the end of this week before I start really getting annoyed. Not that it will get me very far, if my phone call the other day is anything to go by.
posted by solveig at
7:33 pm
4 Comments:
That's what happened to me with Esme. They lost my details, then the GP actually started arguing with me about why I wanted a nuchal scan anyway.
I ended up forking out the money and going to the Portland. They were expensive, but they were really, really, really nice to me for that money.
I hate the NHS. I think they're like that on purpose to put people off having babies.
Having spoken to a few friends about it yesterday, it does seem to be quite common. One of my friends was told the earliest she could have her booking-in appointment was at 20 weeks!!!
I did manage to get a scan but no thanks to them, I called up and they happened to have a cancellation the next day, they still hadn't actually got round to finding me an appointment.
I was absolutely fine getting my appointments for both Jacob and Sam (and I had about 7 or 8 scans with both pregnancies).
That said, I know someone who couldn't make the booking-in date offered and ended up not having her appointment to 23 weeks.
I think it comes down largely to the competence of the admin people who dole out the appointments. If they have systems in place to offer cancellations to women who want their scans sooner, then it all seems to work better. Or if they're prepared to go that extra mile to shift appointments round to accommodate you. I mean, its not as if they're unaware that you need your scans by certain weeks.
I guess its the luck of the draw whether you get Ms/Mr Competent, or Ms/Mr Do You Realise That You Just Interrupted a Very Important Discussion With My Colleagues About The X Factor.
I had no trouble with Freyja (and I also ended up having 4 scans with her) but it seems you just need one little problem - in my case a missing faxed referral - and they don't seem bothered to sort it out. They made no effort to find me an appointment or to speed it up once they did receive my referral. It was only because I decided to keep calling and happened to speak to someone who did care enough to check the appointments that I got an appointment in the end.
My maternity care with Freyja was good - as you say, it seems to be some of the admin people that let it down. I guess it doesn't help that a lot of people don't bother cancelling their appointments if they can't make it - that's what I was told when I was trying to get it sorted out anyway.
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