Islanders needing a blood test at St Mary’s Hospital will be asked to book an appointment using a new online system from Tuesday 27th June.
Patients will be able to choose a convenient time slot enabling them to plan the rest of their day with more certainty. It will also help staff as they will know further in advance about any specific patient requirements and improve patient confidentiality and safety by reducing the number of people in the department.
Appointments can be made online by the patient themselves, at an appointment when a blood test is requested, or through an automated phone line. A limited number of slots will be left free each day so that same-day appointments can still be made for those who need an urgent test.
Vicky Lauchlan, Director of Operations for Planned Care said:
“As many of our patients will know, coming to have your blood taken at St Mary’s can take a great deal of time. This is because the service is offered on a first come first served walk-in basis. On occasion people can walk in, have their test straight away then leave however for most people having bloods taken takes far too long.
“To help us manage demand more effectively and reduce waiting times for patients who need hospital requested blood tests, we have introduced a new online booking system which has proven very successful at other Trusts across the country.”
Everyone over the age of 12 whose blood test has been requested by their GP or practice clinician should have these carried out at their GP practice and they will arrange the appointment. All blood tests for children aged under 12 will be carried out at the hospital.
You can find out more information on the Trust’s website.
More chaos thought up by stupid management decisions. The reason it takes so long to get a blood test is because they are not enough staff doing the work. So called managers running the show badly as usual. Online booking, not good, how about people who don’t have any online facilities, like the elderly, disabled, the blind, it’s discrimination by the NHS. As I said stupid management strikes again.
It will also be a pain if you have a hospital appointment already, they require a further blood test (non urgent) and no slot is available while you are already there!!! So it will mean a further visit and more parking charges……
‘more parking charges’. there you have it , in a nutshell. We are not people any more, just cash cows
The NHS has one of the lowest spends on management of any major countries health service, they do a remarkable job given the funding situation just as all other NHS staff do.
Yep.
NHS spends 1.9% of it’s budget on admin.
The problem with that is medical staff spend more time on paperwork than on caring for patients because of the lack of admin staff.
But the Daily Mail told them that too many administrators is the problem, so it must be true, right?
Rubbish. When I go there all I seem to see are the “suits” wandering about like puffed up cockerels or standing around in little groups waffling about f’ all.
It isn’t rubbish:
The Kings Fund did an analysis comparing the NHS with the health services in other countries.
Let’s start with the headline. The NHS has one of the worst death rates from avoidable causes in the first world at 69 per 100,000. Only the United States is worse at 88.
We have fewer doctors and nurses per head of population than any other country.
We have fewer CT and MRI scanners than any other country.
Whatever you claim to have seen, it is a fact that most countries have more admin staff than the NHS. Germany and France have over twice the number yet have far better health outcomes than the UK.
The reason? Too few medical staff and too many medical staff doing admin.
Facts, whether you like them or not.
The phone number to be called and the web address to be accessed would be helpful !
Try using the phone line – you get three minutes of blurb about what you can do online, then you are put on hold for four minutes listening to annoying “muzak”, and then the system simply cuts you off! Disgraceful service, typical NHS.
And if you click on the link to book a blood test guess what happens, Home> 404
Oops…The page you are looking for cannot be found and may have been deleted.
O well, 4 week wait at the Doctor’s surgery again