Reply from what WAS NHS DIGITAL

[AgedCrone]

Our Contact Centre does not take any role in arranging referrals, appointments or managing the local NHS staff. We cannot book, check, change or cancel appointments as we do not have access to personal information or appointment details.

If you have been referred to an appointment through the e-Referral Service (e-RS), you can manage your referral online at nhs.uk/referrals or via the NHS App.

For assistance with e-RS appointment booking, please call 0345 608 8888

Alternatively, please contact the organisation that referred you.

Kind Regards,

Xxxx

Enquiries Team (formerly of NHS Digital)

SO,NOW WE KNOW,!!! …. Mr Nobody appears to be responsible for any apointment, or anything else !

[medway-lady]

I might seem stupid but what does it do as we haven't got a Contact Centre ?

[AgedCrone in reply to medway-lady]

You get a letter like that!

I don’t know about everybody else, but I have completely lost the plot. If a GP refers a patient to Dr A…then another doctor in the same practice changes it to Dr B….. there doesn’t seem to be an answer …..except sort yourselves out doctors….now does there?

[Fruitandnutcase]

Doesn’t really make sense does it to have two different methods of referring patients does it? One that makes sense and one that doesn’t.

Do you know where the ‘Contact Centre’ is based or who runs it?

Saying that I’ve got an e- referral appointment pending when I finally managed to find my way onto my NHS page see it at the weekend i discovered that it had been cancelled - not by me though.

It seems that ‘someone’ books you for a certain date to get you onto the system and that appointment promptly gets cancelled.

There was a note to say if I haven’t heard by the cancelled todays (today) then I can call up from tomorrow on a given telephone number. Seems that’s how it works in my area. Strange way to do business 🤔

[AgedCrone in reply to Fruitandnutcase]

Tbh..I don’t Know, …. And I don’t think I’m going to bother to find out.. I spoke to a very nice receptionist at my GP surgery, and she just rolled her eyes and said nobody knows what’s going on.

I will just wait & see if anyone associated with my surgeon tries to find out where I am!

[wilbertjellyfish]

Sometimes coping with our illness is easier than the NHS systems....or lack of anything that would pass as a system.

[AgedCrone in reply to wilbertjellyfish]

I am not super effficient….by any means, but between everyone on here…I really don’t think anybody is comfortable with this system… ..where you just get day,date,time…but no info as to why & who you will be seeing.

One of my appointments actually tells me there is a Parking Charge…..at a hospital I am not going to.

Why is that necessary?

[Stills in reply to wilbertjellyfish]

Exactly, and why I’m not bothering any more. I shall wait until I need an ambulance, then wait 12 hours for it.

[medway-lady]

These days so much is confused. I'm fed up with all the texts from GP saying you need this or that, cholesterol medications, flu jab, blood tests etc as that bit of the system can't see the rest so the fact all done or refused and no high cholesterol anyway (mine was 3.4 last blood test) is maddening. At least we can respond and last week another test saying height and weight and blood for yearly check again another phone call done in June. It transpires that two medications now require this so it's every six months ! as their systems don't align. So anyway they b----y do now as I photoshopped their own records saying done and why another text. And they wonder why people are getting annoyed. The whole system like the DWP etc has been tinkered with so much is become unworkable. Its ridiculous chasing then to say you've sent me this 4 times now and its the same response its been done!!

[Recorder500L]

We do seem to spend 75% of our lives trying to sort our own health out!!

I am a patient of two trusts, one for Rheumatoid Arthritis and for what I was informed was two heart attacks. Paying for a Cardiac MRI, I did not have two heart attacks. Both Trusts a different ferry journey away. Neither can read the other Trusts data, Rheumatoid Arthritis Consultant is amazing. As I have been kept on the Cardiac medication from the Cardiac Trust, but with no review for two years, when I saw RA last week asked about referring my Cardiac to the same Trust as the RA through my GP. 'I will do it for you', he said. I hope it is not cancelled after I receive it.

I am sorry to hear of the trouble you have in sorting your appointments. Take Care.