“OMG! She’s running late AGAIN! I’ve got a lecture in half an hour… what shall I do…? I’ll just wait for a bit and see… how can she always run late? What’s the point of booking an appointment time if I am never seen on time?! Grrrr…”

Meanwhile, in a room down the corridor…

“OMG I’m running late again! Why does this always happen to me? I hate keeping people waiting, but it’s so difficult to balance the lists of ailments that some people bring, and the complex mental health issues of others. All in 10 minutes. Now the phone’s ringing…

Yes, ok I’ll speak to that mum later, send me an email and I’ll call her back once we have consent from the student.

Now who’s at the door, grrr, an urgent prescription, ok just this once, but please leave it in my basket next time.

Right, where was I? Write myself a note to check if those results are back this afternoon.

Ok, next person, ‘buzzzz’.

Now the minutes are ticking by as they gather their things together in the waiting room… then strolling down to my door, and here we are…

Hi, come in have a seat. How can I help today? Three things to discuss? OK, let’s see what we can do…

Sorry the phone’s ringing, let me just see what that is, the on-call biochemist? Ok yes, put them through. Sorry, I just need to ask about a result…

Now where were we?

Panic attacks, and depressed you say, ok, tell me all about it…”

 

At the Students’ Health Service we are very aware of time keeping issues, and that quite often our patients have to wait to see us. We would, of course, rather that this was kept to a minimum, but we hope that you will understand that there are some things that can’t be rushed, and that we try to give each person the time they need, when they need it.  Everyone’s time is precious, we really do understand that.

We have all taken part in extra communications skills training in the last year, to try to identify more efficiently ways of working, but there will always be difficult situations, and therefore we hope that you will understand the challenging line we tread when trying to run to time.

 

Thank you for being patient.