I had a long early morning hospital appointment yesterday. It turned out to be the perfect example of how hospital transport can be a nightmare. Especially on a Friday.
This is a quick explainer for anyone not familiar with how the transport system works. There are three sorts of patient transport. Firstly there are the transport ambulances. These are driven by NHS employees who do not work unsocial hours. They are mainly used for transporting small groups of patients on short journeys, or taking patients who are not mobile enough to get into a car.
Then you get the volunteer car drivers. The NHS like having them because there aren't any associated employer costs. The drivers like the job because they get paid a tax free mileage allowance and they can choose what hours they like. They tend to do the longer trips. Unfortunately very few of them are prepared to do an early morning start, or to work on a Friday afternoon when the traffic is notoriously slow.
When there is no other option, the NHS use the third option. A taxi. Goodness knows how much it costs them. Perhaps if they offered the volunteer drivers a bit more mileage allowance for the unpopular shifts it might tempt a few more of them to drive then.
So here I am at 5.30am on Friday morning having no idea what time to expect my taxi. I don't know which firm they have booked with, and the transport call centre doesn't open till 8am. You just have to hope the taxi turns up, which can be very stressful if you have an important appointment. Fortunately mine arrived soon after. Unfortunately the taxi driver had never been to the hospital before, and had no idea where the block was that I wanted. I thought we'd arrived nice and early, but it ended up being a frantic rush to get to the department on time.
My return transport was booked for 1.15pm and I was ready on time. I was still sitting there at 2.30pm. The hospital were frantically trying to get through to the call centre. Eventually they get told that I'm not being picked up till 3pm as I'll be sharing a taxi with another patient who is due to finish at 3.15pm. The taxi arrives at 3.30pm. Very apologetic driver, the traffic is gridlocked. I then find out that the other patient is at another hospital on the other side of town. We make our way very slowly through the traffic and get there at 4pm.
Don't get away till 4.30pm as the patient is delayed in radiotherapy. This is because he had a nightmare of a taxi journey that morning. A driver who didn't speak english, drove right into two busy town centres instead of using the bypasses, and then got lost a few miles from the hospital. The patient was over an hour late for his appointment, fortunately they were still able to see him.
Of course we then hit the Friday evening rush hour and it took 3 hours to drive the 80 miles home. I will be doing my very best to try to make sure I don't get any more Friday appointments!
