Keir Starmer is missing a huge problem for cancer patients like me. (Image: Humphrey Nemar/Daily Express)
The headline isn’t a quote from a recently discovered work by William Shakespeare. It’s something that I say either out loud (if I can get anyone to listen) or just to myself almost every time I get sent details of my next appointments.
And, though it may seem flippant, there is a lot of truth in it because it seems that I have to fight to correct something with the appointments at least 80% of the time. And I’m already fighting, ya know, .
With the pair proclaiming that upgrading the app will save the health service, and will undoubtedly be delighted to learn that all my appointment details are sent to me on an app. And yet, problems persist.
When mistakes are made, the app I use, which is separate from the one being treated to an upgrade, is utterly useless.
I’m on cycle 32 of chemotherapy, or maybe cycle 33 (I lose count), and I’m still not sure who to speak to at my “world-leading cancer hospital” when there is an issue.
And these issues are costing the NHS time and money that it simply cannot afford to waste. This week’s absolute gem was me being booked in for a chemotherapy appointment at 1.45am on a Wednesday.
The day works for me, but there aren’t any trains at that time, and, most importantly, the chemotherapy day unit will be closed. Because it’s a day unit.
I was also booked in for a chemotherapy appointment at a much more reasonable hour on a Friday, which is a day that doesn’t work with my treatment schedule.
This was one of those occasions on which the app I have, MyChart, which is used by NHS trusts, was useless. You can’t reschedule an appointment in the app, so I had to get in touch with actual people.
To rectify the problems I contacted someone on my medical team who spoke to the scheduling team who apparently said that Wednesday is the day but they wouldn’t be able to confirm the timed slot until nearer the time.
At no point did anyone say: “We’re sorry for booking you in for an appointment at 1.45 am in the morning and if we had checked before sending out the details we would have avoided wasting your time and that of the busy staff.”
What use would the NHS or the MyChart app have been in that situation? You can’t change appointments on either. Now, it could be the case that the Labour Government are planning to revamp all of the NHS apps and include the basic ability to change an appointment and they’ve just not told us.
I’ll go further, they seem to have confirmed you won’t be able to do that. You’ll simply be given information on how to change appointments.
So it looks like I’m stuck. And I’m having to negotiate this quagmire while battling, I’ll say it again, CANCER.
Rather than tinkering with one tech platform, Labour would help me and other cancer patients far more by ensuring that we don’t have to jump through these hoops when mistakes are made. Smoother procedures would be welcomed. Staff must be up to scratch.
Obviously, not everyone goes through the same rigmarole as I seem to be faced with every week.
But, with Macmillan Cancer Care estimating that there are 3.5 million people living with cancer in the UK, I wonder how many people have to fight for their treatment.
And, in turn, how much time and money the NHS spends on resolving these admin issues for cancer patients. Even if it’s just a tenner per time, that’s a huge overall amount that could be spent on better things like life-saving care.
The problems could be resolved before they happen if the scheduling teams employed some common sense when booking appointments, not least by only putting them in for when hospitals are open.
Common sense would save the NHS long before these app upgrades, and the sooner Labour realise this, the better.