Oh this is what patients have to put up with all the time.

If a doctor can't get past the receptionist what chance do the patient have?

I don't think I've ever had reason to complain about NHS medical staff, but the administrative staff cause so much frustration! A lot of the time I think they're just following the method, and it's the higher-ups not understanding how stuff needs to work, but it feels like things are so much more difficult/wasteful than they should be.

I'm sure I've mentioned before how I've had ambulance transfers, overnight stay and a slot in theatre booked for me 2 counties away for an op I'd had completed 6 months previously (And I had the letter from the NHS trust acknowledging that it was being done privately). Organising all of that lot must take time, and it was completely wasted effort.

I've come across some really good admin staff but in all honesty, they're rare. I've had issues with:

- social services (being passed back and forth between departments with no one accepting responsibility)
- district nurses (ditto)
- getting clinic letters, discharge summaries and scan reports despite the fact we should have received them ages ago
- admin not "receiving" our referrals - this is more likely if they're faxed

In pretty much every case, everyone seems to blame someone else (or me) but no one takes fecking responsibility. This is what winds me up. I spend on average 30-60 mins a day doing this. That's average - some days, it's nothing and other days, it can take me several hours to get things sorted. What's worse is the patients don't see this and think I'm sitting on my backside doing nothing.

Don't get me started about social services. I nearly died because of their incompetence on more than once. They only try and avoid taking responsibility for anything, I once spent the night in a police station because social services would not do their job.

My sister has just stunk the entire house out with a sweet chilli chicken wrap THAT ISN'T EVEN OPENED.

I'm sure the guy in the garage pissed himself laughing at her when he sold it. I mean how would you not smell it in the shop even, never mind getting into your car with it?

I'm gonna sign myself in somewhere...

At the risk of sounding like a daily mail reader, it's basically just the British work ethic multiplied by the security of being employed by the public sector.

Hmm. I work in the public sector and I'm perfectly happy to take responsibility thank you. In fact I continually lambast my superiors for not letting me do it enough.

It's much more likely in the case we're talking about (what you might describe as 'care professions') is they're terrified of taking responsibility because if they do and it goes wrong, even for reasons beyond their control, they'll get sued. What has made our society risk averse isn't 'the British work ethic', it's the 'American Litigation Ethic' pushed by legions of ambulance chasing law firms.

Ask CW how much litigation insurance he's had to take out to practice as a GP. And then tell me if you were faced with the threat of legal action that suggests, you'd be keen to take decisions or not.

Jon

^^^As a newly qualified GP, I pay a discounted rate of £4000/yr I think. It's only higher in Obs&Gynae I think. Medicine has changed since I started training and is basically defensive medicine. It can take me a good 3-4 mins after a consultation to type things up because I write so much. And then think of all the patients I see.

Jon is correct in that some people in the public sector don't want to take responsibility. Those who bother to do are the ones who get blamed if it goes wrong. The more they are paid (reflecting job role), the more responsibility they shoulder.

Given the NHS these days, there's no "protection" in the job centre and I have been dissuading teenagers from entering healthcare for the past year.

EDIT: have a read of a dailywail article. A doctor (presumably paediatrician or paediatric surgeon) did impromptu surgery in the ward on a child who was dying. By doing so, he saved the child's life. But what he did and how did it was inappropriate, not following recommended pathways/guidelines and hence could probably be suspended.

Nah, my wife works for the nhs and I'm an employer. You're the exception to the rule and I claim my five pounds.

That's at Jon, haven read cw's reply yet.

My experience of working in the public sector is that management forget where they came from and start licking boss arse. They then panic that the old crowd don't like them anymore and start getting paranoid. This leads to them trying to reassert themselves with idiotic ideas they've just dreamed up/are doing out of spite at those who have 'wronged' them.

Oh, and when the bosses are female and that happens, you'll see general stress levels rise until a mangament muppet suggests an activity day that almost nobody wants to go on.

When my friend who was a senior registrar in Pathology his insurance was £1000 a month, but that was because of the litigation outcomes of wrongful diagnosis especially when it came to cancer tests.

Not only does our oil heating not work, my sister managed to send a rather large mirror and the electric radiator flying down the stairs...

Anybody got a gun? It's OK, I can blame it on the videogames.

Bloody snow has presumably meant my rental discs are still stuck in England (Blockbuster and Lovefilm, it's a long story)

I think you might have more problems than the snow, frankly.