Efficient NHS?
Last week, I finally changed GP's.
I've been avoiding it for a year and a half since I moved to Clapham because of past experiences... I remember trying to register in the east end, then Finchley, and Walthamstow - all were more painful than trying to get a bank account when I first moved to UK (and boy, was that fun!).
For over 6 months, I've actually had a reminder pop up in iCal every week to try and convince me to go register... but I preferred to be annoyed by pop-ups than actually go through with it. In the end, I was spurred into registering by my girlfriend who had to register to get a bout of tonsillitis looked at.
And I was pleasantly surprised! This time the registration took well under an hour, including the medical exam - I'd say that's pretty good considering I didn't even book an appointment. What's more, the staff were friendly, the practice was well kept, and they dealt with my registration efficiently - they even made good use of technology by way of a patient queuing system & notice board, and entering my profile into their computer system so they didn't have to copy things out by hand 3 or 4 times! And they dealt with Nika quickly & efficiently too. I had to keep asking myself: is this normal?
This is a huge contrast to my latest experience with NHS administration - on paying a visit to my grandad at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, it took me about half an hour to actually find him! I had to go to the main reception twice to confirm which ward he was in (heck, even finding the main reception was hard enough). Hopefully the doctor's don't have to go through that process each time they want to examine a patient!
To be fair, the nurses were very polite and tried to be as helpful as possible, and more to the point, they seemed to be taking good care of him. They can't be held accountable for the inefficiencies of the system they work in, after all.
These experiences are no-where near as bad as the blatant lack of communication and organization my aunt has had to deal with in organizing his entry to, and discharge from the hospital, and even that is no-where near as bad as some of the horror stories I've heard about the NHS and elderly abuse.
So, it could just be that we've found a good practice, or maybe we just happened by on a good day. But I sincerely hope this 'new' efficiency is becoming the norm - not only from the point of view of how much of everyone's salary gets funneled into the NHS (like it or not), but also that better organization will let the staff concentrate on what's important: their patients.
I've been avoiding it for a year and a half since I moved to Clapham because of past experiences... I remember trying to register in the east end, then Finchley, and Walthamstow - all were more painful than trying to get a bank account when I first moved to UK (and boy, was that fun!).
For over 6 months, I've actually had a reminder pop up in iCal every week to try and convince me to go register... but I preferred to be annoyed by pop-ups than actually go through with it. In the end, I was spurred into registering by my girlfriend who had to register to get a bout of tonsillitis looked at.
And I was pleasantly surprised! This time the registration took well under an hour, including the medical exam - I'd say that's pretty good considering I didn't even book an appointment. What's more, the staff were friendly, the practice was well kept, and they dealt with my registration efficiently - they even made good use of technology by way of a patient queuing system & notice board, and entering my profile into their computer system so they didn't have to copy things out by hand 3 or 4 times! And they dealt with Nika quickly & efficiently too. I had to keep asking myself: is this normal?
This is a huge contrast to my latest experience with NHS administration - on paying a visit to my grandad at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, it took me about half an hour to actually find him! I had to go to the main reception twice to confirm which ward he was in (heck, even finding the main reception was hard enough). Hopefully the doctor's don't have to go through that process each time they want to examine a patient!
To be fair, the nurses were very polite and tried to be as helpful as possible, and more to the point, they seemed to be taking good care of him. They can't be held accountable for the inefficiencies of the system they work in, after all.
These experiences are no-where near as bad as the blatant lack of communication and organization my aunt has had to deal with in organizing his entry to, and discharge from the hospital, and even that is no-where near as bad as some of the horror stories I've heard about the NHS and elderly abuse.
So, it could just be that we've found a good practice, or maybe we just happened by on a good day. But I sincerely hope this 'new' efficiency is becoming the norm - not only from the point of view of how much of everyone's salary gets funneled into the NHS (like it or not), but also that better organization will let the staff concentrate on what's important: their patients.