The Royal London Hospital

I had minor surgery and elected local anasthetic. The wound needs to be packed daily. This dept do not offer patient aftercare - so have to go to a walk in centre tomorrow. Nhs 111 suggested homerton hospital. I would suggest Whitechapel needs to assess their patient after care services.

I attended for an appointment at clinic3 at 2.30pm on 10 July. As I checked in I told the receptionist that I had a radiotherapy appointment at Barts at 4.45pm and I would have to leave at 4pm. As time went on I reminded another two receptionists/ nurses. One told me at 3.30 that my name was top of the list. Another nurse also said the same to another person waiting a long time. After 90 minutes of this chaos and misinformation I told them I had to leave for my appointment at Barts. They asked me what I wanted to do - which is an odd question given that the problem was of their own making. I then left for my appointment at Barts. I told the staff that they should not record this as ‘did not attend’ as I did. From the patient perspective it was the doctor who ‘did not attend’! I always attend appointments on time. I get a regular SMS reminder of the cost to the NHS of non attendance. What about the cost to the economy of patient waiting ridiculously lengthy times? The staff told me this clinic is always over-subscribed - why not focus on doing something about that, or at least tell patients that they can expect to wait 2-3 hours.

I felt really listened to and I opened up more than I thought I would

Overall the staff at the clinic were friendly and helpful. The letter I received however had very little information, only the date time and location. I had no indication of the length of procedure or clinic delays. I had a morning appointment and told work I would be back by afternoon however at the clinic they estimated an 8 hour wait and I had to cancel work. I was also not aware of how to prep I.e. no food or drink before or having an escort yet on the day they said this may mean the procedure is cancelled. I think more information prior to the day about what to expect would have solved a lot of this.

Midwife in triage, doctors and nurses went out of their way to help me and treat me with kindness and respect. Waited a long time but didn’t mind as was kept up to date and received thorough checks and tests.