My lad had a Doc's appointment this week. He was phoned the night before to ask him if he could come in an hour early so he rearranged his work and did so. When he got there he was told that they were running an hour late.
My nephew also had a Docs appointment this week. He was told they needed to check his blood pressure but unfortunately the only machines they'd got available on the day were for barometric use. He asked if he should come back and was told 'No, go to your chemist, they'll do it and then phone the results through to us'. It's like they're deliberately trying to piss people off.
Chemists are increasingly part of the front line.Fortunately they have a retail business to run and are much more entrepreneurial than anyone ever employed in the NHS.
Just as the world needs re-calibrating so does the sainted view of the NHS.As we are all finding it's massively inefficient, a bureaucratic nightmare that needs modernising and streamlining.
I always ask for the 1st appointment of the day when I go for my eye check up so that emergencies/delays have little effect.However, even that fails and I observed closely how they work to see why I was waiting for long and others , with later appointments, were going in to the consultant before me.
The problem was obvious-
you check in with the receptionist
they take your file to the table outsiide the consultant's room
he come is about 9.30 so drops go in about 9.00
Later appointments come along in the meantime
The receptionist takes their file and PUTS IT ON TOP of the files already there
Consultant arrives, picks up FIRST (top) file he sees and you're left waiting while he works through the pile!
I've pointed this out to them many times but they don't grasp the problem so I sit by the table and tell them I was first so move my file to the top every time they come along with another one.
If they can't even get that right it's going to be a long haul to modernise, computerise and stream line services.
That's apart from the increasing age across the population, the increasing life expectancy, the increasing demand and cost for more drugs and operations and the very fact that there's less people paying into the kitty than there is needing their services.
When I have had eye treatments it's normally contrcated out to private service and has been very efficient so it seems your good lady has been more than unlucky.