“Does it now? You know, working in the NHS, I never tire of 'experts' who know naff all about running a hospital telling me what is right and wrong with my trust. In this woman's case I suspect there is an issue with the contact centre, there may even be slot issues where they are showing up incorretly on the system when they have already been taken.
Obviously the media chose to lead with negative stories as it is their perogative to rip into the NHS when possible (The Echo however tend to be more balanced in fairness) but choose and book is liked by a large number of patients. I am one of them because I can elect to go to whichever hospital I feel is performing best and it helps me to pick the one with the lowest waiting list.
As for the story on nurses, there are always going to be bad eggs, it is just a shame that we have to carry the can for them. The lot of a nurse is fairly easy though, treat a huge number of patients for relatively low pay, and if you are lucky you can get verbally and physically abused by patients and visitors.”

“It is time that Lincoln County Hospital received a full and detailed inspection both on the medical and on the administrative fronts. report published to day makes a scathing criticism of nurses with which I agree, but the adminstrative side needs its nefficiency looking at. When this is done the whole hospital adminstration(including consultants to tea ladies and cleaners needs restructuring with a clear and strict chain of command.”

“"I have now asked my doctor to refer me to a private consultant because what's the use of having money in the bank if you don't have your health?" said Mrs Chalk.
"It's either that or sitting in A&E until somebody will see me."

whats going to take longest ?
A wait at A & E or a wait for a Private Consultant ?
Its Nice To Have The Money To Make The Choice !”

“"I have now asked my doctor to refer me to a private consultant because what's the use of having money in the bank if you don't have your health?" said Mrs Chalk.
"It's either that or sitting in A&E until somebody will see me."

whats going to take longest ?
A wait at A & E or a wait for a Private Consultant ?”

“I was so impressed last week by the NHS service, even though the referred to, booking service was not used.
I had a problem with my left eye - my right eye problem was already being attended to by QMC Nottingham.
I rang my doctor's reception at 0830; I saw the doctor at 1130; I was being attended to by the eye clinic at Lincoln County Hospital at 1430.
I have nothing but praise for this service. My thanks to my Doctor and his Receptionist and the Reception, Nurses and Ophthamologist at Lincoln County Hospital Eye Department.
I must add that I am sorry that I may have taken the place of someone who was already on the waiting list.”

“I'm still waiting for an appointment with a specialist nearly 6 months after my GP referred me telling me it would be 2 to 3 months,which I thought was bad enough! I've called up my GP and all I get told is 'we'll chase it up' yet nothing has happened yet, I'm at the end of my tether but I just cannot afford private care.

And this was not with the new booking service! There is clearly something wrong with the Lincolnshire NHS system”

“I'm afraid this sounds familiar to my story, it took me 6 months for my GP to refer me to a specialist and when I recieved a letter I had to ring to make na appointment and ended up having to go to newark hospital and then to Kings mill hospital for an ultrasound, all of which meant I have had to take 2 days annual elave off work- not convenient for me at all. Dont understand why I could not get an appointment at Lincoln.”

“This looks suspiciously like a system designed to allow the LPCT to appear to meet its targets, without actually meeting them at all.”

“It's a joke that we are being coerced into using this booking system by Lincolnshire Primary Care Trust but it does absolutely nothing for the majority of patients who want to be seen by their local hospital as it is so rare for a successful booking to be made through the system.

The hospital trust seems to have made it a policy not to actually make any appointments available, causing a lot of excess worry and hassle to patients.

People do get their appointments eventually but are given no choice as to the location or timing and have less notice and so can't plan their lives around them.

Perhaps there wasn't actually all that much wrong with just writing to a named consultant for an appointment but government agenda suggests otherwise.”