IOM DHSC & MANX CARE

[forestboy]

39 minutes ago, Numbnuts said:

I get a text when I book an appointment at Hailwood practice and one the day before the actual appointment. Pretty good tbh .

Same with Castletown Practice and Thie Rosien Dental Practice 

[Roger Mexico]

4 hours ago, snowman said:

The cost of missed GP appointments for 2022 is on average £47,000 per month.

That's according to the Island's former health minister, who adds an average of 1,200 appointments have been missed every month this year.

This is complete bollocks.   It doesn't actually cost anything.  If cancelled appointments are the current low level (about 20-4% I think) then it's unlikely to even inconvenience anyone.  All that happens is that some patients further down the list get seen a little less late than they other wise would have.  This is just the upper reaches of DHSC/Manx Care wanting blame all their problems on the patients.

[Apple]

1 hour ago, Roger Mexico said:

This is just the upper reaches of DHSC/Manx Care wanting blame all their problems on the patients.

.....and patients can't answer back.

This has been discussed at length before here - I remember relating the experience of neighbours trying to get through on the telephone to actually cancel appointments, but after 3 attempts gave up after not being able to reach anyone. There was also the incident where the patient had died but no-one had told the hospital admin about it.

Anyway, Theresa Coffee will be making announcements in UK parliament later today which might help if the IOM Government adopt whatever she suggests. (She wants 1 million volunteers apparently to help the NHS and more nurses in GP surgeries to undertake more routine interventions along with pension changes to deter GPs leaving). And some money...... 

[GD4ELI]

59 minutes ago, Apple said:

.....and patients can't answer back.

This has been discussed at length before here - I remember relating the experience of neighbours trying to get through on the telephone to actually cancel appointments, but after 3 attempts gave up after not being able to reach anyone. There was also the incident where the patient had died but no-one had told the hospital admin about it.

Anyway, Theresa Coffee will be making announcements in UK parliament later today which might help if the IOM Government adopt whatever she suggests. (She wants 1 million volunteers apparently to help the NHS and more nurses in GP surgeries to undertake more routine interventions along with pension changes to deter GPs leaving). And some money...... 

About nurses - this works well at my local surgery (Penryn). Despite all the crap going on the surgery runs well, when I had a second bout of gout I talked to a doctor on the phone and went round an hour later to pick up my (free) prescription.

[GD4ELI]

5 hours ago, Mercenary said:

An appointment notification service would surely go a long way to mitigating it. Everywhere else has one (texts/emails/etc). Could probably be done without a centralised booking system (although this would help).

I rarely visit my local surgery (Penryn) but am regularly updated with texts and Facebook posts. It really couldn't be any better. We now have an online system for getting appointments, requesting a callback. Non-internet types can still call for an appointment.

[wrighty]

5 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

This is complete bollocks.   It doesn't actually cost anything.  If cancelled appointments are the current low level (about 20-4% I think) then it's unlikely to even inconvenience anyone.  All that happens is that some patients further down the list get seen a little less late than they other wise would have.  This is just the upper reaches of DHSC/Manx Care wanting blame all their problems on the patients.

This is similar to when people quote the cost of a night in hospital at £500 or whatever. It’s calculated by dividing the total costs of staffing the inpatient service plus consumables, divided by the number of beds, divided by 365. It doesn’t mean that if a patient stays a day too long there’s an extra £500 to find.

[cissolt]

9 hours ago, Numbnuts said:

I get a text when I book an appointment at Hailwood practice and one the day before the actual appointment. Pretty good tbh .

This should be standard practice for all GPs.  Even an excel spreadsheet would be better than the current system.

I attended onchan surgery a few months ago and had cause to wait over an hour to see the doctor.  During that time the phones rang constantly and were not answered by the three staff at the desk!  I assumed it was being diverted to laxey but the calls were never answered.

[Jarndyce]

10 hours ago, Mercenary said:

An appointment notification service would surely go a long way to mitigating it. Everywhere else has one (texts/emails/etc). Could probably be done without a centralised booking system (although this would help).

Kensington have this service as well.

I also received a reminder text yesterday from Nobles, about my blood test appointment today.

Reading back through the posts, maybe it’s a more common service than you think…

Edited September 22, 2022 by Jarndyce
Added the bit about Nobles!

[Boo Gay'n]

UKG thinks that appointments are an important issue - https://www.bbc.com/news/health-62987823

[Apple]

 

3 hours ago, wrighty said:

This is similar to when people quote the cost of a night in hospital at £500 or whatever. It’s calculated by dividing the total costs of staffing the inpatient service plus consumables, divided by the number of beds, divided by 365. It doesn’t mean that if a patient stays a day too long there’s an extra £500 to find.

But the overhead costs are incurred anyway surely.

Sadly though, how do these costs compare with the costs of legal representations this year and the anticipated millions (surely not) that the court cases may result in. 

And still it drags on, costing more each time there is another hearing. Time to put  a stop to the misery..?

""And having struggled to recruit GPs in recent years, the government is instead changing the funding rules to allow practices to take on more senior nurses and GP assistants, the equivalent of health-care assistants in hospitals. BBC news.""

That will please some highly paid and highly skilled qualified senior nurses.... not!

Edited September 22, 2022 by Apple
quote from the BBC news added

[wrighty]

2 hours ago, Apple said:

 

But the overhead costs are incurred anyway surely.

Exactly, which was the point Roger and I were making. Unless by abolishing DNAs you can reduce GP numbers, or by reducing length of start you can close a ward and lay off some nurses, then effectively these figures do not represent a cost/lost saving. 

[WTF]

14 hours ago, snowman said:

The cost of missed GP appointments for 2022 is on average £47,000 per month.

 

how does missing an appointment 'cost' anything ?   i would have thought the doctor got paid by the hour or was salaried so they would be paid the same whether you show up or not .  i agree it could be wasting their  time , but not costing.

Edited September 22, 2022 by WTF

[John Wright]

19 minutes ago, WTF said:

how does missing an appointment 'cost' anything ?   i would have thought the doctor got paid by the hour or was salaried so they would be paid the same whether you show up or not .  i agree it could be wasting their  time , but not costing.

It costs indirectly. Enough wasted appointments requires one, or more, extra doctors to be employed/paid for. It costs patients delay in seeing their GP and potential deterioration in health, with consequent A&E, treatment, etc. costs.

[Newbie]

10 minutes ago, WTF said:

how does missing an appointment 'cost' anything ?   i would have thought the doctor got paid by the hour or was salaried so they would be paid the same whether you show up or not .  i agree it could be wasting their  time , but not costing.

Looking at missed appointments in terms of their financial cost isn't terribly helpful, but if 4 or 5% of appointments are missed (rather than cancelled and rebooked for someone else), it does mean that 4 or 5% fewer people get seen. A 4 or 5% increase/decrease in numbers seen can make a significant difference to waiting times for appointments. If demand exceeds capacity by a few percent, waiting lists will build up. If capacity exceeds demand by a few percent, waiting lists will fall. Furthermore, whilst some people who miss appointments do so because they no longer need an appointment, many do still need to be seen and just book another appointment, effectively increasing waiting times for everyone.

I guess that is a harder concept to get across in a few words, rather than expressing it in financial terms. The underlying message remains the same that if you can't make an appointment it helps to cancel it (even at quite short notice), rather than simply not turning up.

[Newsdesk]

48 minutes ago, WTF said:

how does missing an appointment 'cost' anything ?   i would have thought the doctor got paid by the hour or was salaried so they would be paid the same whether you show up or not .  i agree it could be wasting their  time , but not costing.

All attributing missed appointment costs is about is blaming the public for crap service. It’s our fault because we missed appointments. However I believe that when they investigated why so many people missed or rescheduled appointments at the hospital it was because so many were scheduled by letter well in advance (up to a year in advance in many cases) and they were then either subsequently changed or were forgotten about. So basically the system was completely shite.