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Booking an appointment

Posted By Needexercisestressecho

"Booking an appointment"

About: Box Hill Hospital / Cardiology

(as the patient),

I have now had 2 out of 2 bad experiences with Eastern Health's Box Hill Hospital, Cardiology Department. 

On both occasions, I felt my GP's referrals were ignored. 

Contrary to the expectation of Box Hill Hospital, Cardiology Department calling me to book an appointment, I had to call them. 

Upon calling them, the staff then asked me to email the referral which, in my opinion, demonstrates the clear lack of the staff to get the referral letters in an efficient manner. 

To make it worse, I did not hear from them even after emailing them the referral. I had to call them again.

The person on the phone, I felt was clearly overwhelmed with the workload and, in my opinion, extremely impatient and discourteous. 

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Responses

Response from Gayle Smith, Executive Director, Quality, Planning and Innovation, Eastern Health 3 years ago
Gayle Smith
Executive Director, Quality, Planning and Innovation,
Eastern Health

Submitted on 15/02/2021 at 2:57 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 3:02 PM

picture of Gayle Smith

Dear Needexercisestressecho,

I am sorry to hear that you have had to follow up on your referral on two separate occasions, this is not what we would want to happen. I would also like to apologise for the discourteous response you received when you rang. We do aim to be kind and courteous at all times and on this occasion, we did not meet these expectations.

I will provide your feedback to the Cardiology department and ask for them to review it. I trust that you now have the appointment that you were referred for however if you require any further information or have any further feedback can I please ask that you contact one of our Patient Relations Advisors in the Eastern Health Centre for Patient Experience either by calling 1800 EASTERN or by emailing feedback@easternhealth.org.au.

If you choose to call please be aware that it is possible that the Patient Relations Advisors may be on another call at the time you ring and if so you will be invited to leave a message so they can return your call.

Thank you again for raising these issues.

Regards,

Gayle Smith

Executive Director, Quality, Planning and Innovation

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful

Update posted by Needexercisestressecho (the patient)

Thanks, Gayle. I appreciate the response and I am glad that the team is undertaking the due diligence to avoid such future incidents.

Wishing you well.

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