My friend Mandy is dreading tomorrow. She has to get to Dover for an outpatients appointment with a consultant she really likes and NHS staff who treat her thoughtfully.
So what’s to dread? Patient transport is what!
Transport provided by the NHS was long ago farmed out to private companies. While most of the staff are good and some excellent, they’re employed by organisations who have shareholders to satisfy and profits to make. Patient comfort can suffer.
You have to be ready really early as they may turn up at any time. When I last went to an appointment at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) in London, I was told to be ready from 10am for a 1pm appointment. But they turned up at 9am and were also expecting to pick up a patient in Margate whose appointment was 4.30pm!
She was lovely – thanks, Mary, for making the whole journey more interesting – but she’d had to get dressed, make a sandwich and a flask of tea and prepare to leave her house in 15 minutes so that I could get to London by one.
Not easy when your legs are unpredictable, your back is aching and you live alone. After all, we’re only going to the RNOH because we have conditions too complicated for our local hospital.
You have to take food because it’s always a long day and if you want a hot drink, you need to take it with you. They’ve only just reopened the cafe at the RNOH, but carrying hot drinks is difficult with hands occupied by crutches or wheeling a wheelchair. And it shuts long before the clinics finish.
And then you have to plan for a gruelling journey home. It’s at least two and a half hours from London to Thanet, through the rush hour. No lavs and no refreshments!
I was finished by 2.30pm but I was told I had to wait for Mary. 4.30pm was stretching into much later as delays in seeing patients got worse.
I looked so miserable waiting in the about-to-close cafe the nice girl clearing up brought me two huge flapjacks that were left over and a bag with handles to carry them – if I was lucky enough to get away soon.
I love flapjacks!
Then my luck changed! Someone had cancelled, or got taken in – or worse – I didn’t enquire! A driver turned up calling my name and I was away! Sorry Mary if you’re reading this! Hope you’re OK.
I was home by 6.30pm, gasping for tea and the toilet.
Mandy has to see her consultant every couple of months – she has Motor Neurone disease (MND) which has to be checked on frequently.
Remember what I said about lavs? Most of us, like Mandy, try not to drink much before a journey because we need accessible toilets and it takes time to find them and use them, so you might be late for your appointment.
It’s not a good idea to stop drinking. I form blood clots easily so I’m advised to drink a lot if I’m sitting still for long journeys or get too hot. But that has to be balanced against the misery of being desperate for a wee in a London traffic jam when your legs don’t work.
Last time, Mandy waited five hours for transport, checking hourly and too tired to eat her sandwiches. MND makes you exhausted easily and unable to speak much, especially if you’ve had the stress of a long journey and dealing with various tests. So you can’t even ask for help.
She could get a taxi but to Dover and back from Thanet would be around £100 – who can afford that every two months?
And she says: “I’m determined to keep using the privatised patient transport and keep making complaints about their service on the feedback forms they send after every trip. Mainly because almost all my fellow users are old and frail and wouldn’t dream of complaining.
“It’s our taxes and our NHS! And private companies are making millions out of it!”
Doesn’t she deserve better?
