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Care Opinion

Poor communication about patient arrival

Posted By camelopardalisje75

"Poor communication about patient arrival"

About: Katanning Health Service

(as a service user),

I attended the Katanning Health Service for a Community Health appointment in the morning. Upon my arrival, I informed the admin staff that I had an appointment and who it was with. They told me they would let them know I was waiting. 

Half an hour later I was still waiting for my appointment so I approached the admin desk again just to check and was told by one of the staff members, I felt very abruptly, that they didn't know I was here so hadn't let the department know.

One of the other admin staff members corrected this person and said they had emailed the department to let them know I had arrived. This first staff member made me feel embarrassed and upset, which for someone who already had anxiety, is very hard. The admin staff members then continued to argue about it. 

Also, why email departments and not ring or page them? Emails can get missed. 

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Responses

Response from Robyn Millar, Director of Nursing/Health Service Manager, Central Great Southern, WA Country Health Service Great Southern 4 years ago
Robyn Millar
Director of Nursing/Health Service Manager, Central Great Southern,
WA Country Health Service Great Southern

Manager of health services, across 3 sites

Submitted on 11/10/2019 at 3:11 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 3:33 PM

Dear Purple Pumpkin,

I am very sorry that you had this experience with the Katanning Health Service administration staff. I apologise for the distress and embarrassment this exchange caused you.

As a result of your feedback we have reiterated to all our reception staff on the Katanning Health Service site the expectation that our patients, clients and their families/carers are spoken to with courtesy and respect and will discuss this further at the upcoming administration team meeting on 24 October 2019.

Thank you for your feedback regarding the method of contacting clinical staff when clients arrive for their appointment. The current process is for administration staff to type a message into the computer which is then relayed to the clinicians' pager. This is to ensure that clinicians are not interrupted by a phone call during a consultation with the previous client. We will also discuss with the Community Health teams to ensure this process is being consistently followed and clinicians respond to their pager message in a timely manner.

Thank you for your feedback as this enables us to consistently review and improve our services, I sincerely hope that any future interactions you have with staff at Katanning Health Service will be positive.

If you would like to discuss this further please do not hesitate to contact me on 9821 6200 and I will be able to address your concerns with the appropriate department.

Thank you for your feedback.

Robyn Millar

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