tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5132674095286496900.post4839429242605373178..comments2023-08-02T14:00:05.513+01:00Comments on boyish: Anxious Boy (1)Olliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15812865772654663502noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5132674095286496900.post-83875576655620410802013-07-17T23:39:41.482+01:002013-07-17T23:39:41.482+01:00(hi, this is Carrie from the meetup at Leon in Old...(hi, this is Carrie from the meetup at Leon in Old Compton Street a few months ago- trying to avoid leaving an electronic paper trail to discussions of me being ill)<br /><br />I'm so sorry to hear that you've had such a shit experience, I'm trying to sort out a mental health referral for myself at the moment and I'm having some very similar frustrations.<br /><br />As an NHS employee (though not for mental health) I can confirm that sometimes there really isn't a box for that- and this is really fucking STUPID. <br /><br />For example, I once spent about half an hour on the phone to another NHS employee trying to sort out a complex admin problem for a patient I've never spoken to, but who happens to be trans. Some of their letters are still under their legal name, some under their real one. I stressed this, repeatedly, to the NHS employee, because I assumed this was something they would want to make sure was flagged up on the hospital system so that the receptionist, nurse, etc didn't screw up and address them by the wrong name. Eventually, the person I was speaking to told me that it isn't physically possible for them to do anything with this information- apparently the admin staff don't see or speak to the consultant at any point, and the software they use to transfer the relevant information over is an electronic form that has literally no free text fields anywhere, and there isn't a relevant field, so it will just have to go unaddressed.<br /><br />Which makes me so fucking angry, since it doesn't take imagination to think of a whole list of things that the consultant might need to be made aware of but aren't easily addressed by means of tickbox- what if the patient needs their knee examined but their PTSD is triggered by being touched, or has a serious allergy to some seemingly-innocuous product that might be found in a doctor's office? But it's one of those situations where probably everyone who interacts with the software already knows that it's shit but no one has the authority to fix it.<br /><br />(to clarify, this is not at all intended as a plea for sympathy for NHS employees. And it does not at all explain the intake guy's comment, since he was writing his own notes.)<br /><br />But yes, much sympathy for running up against a brick wall of this sort of thing. And thank you for writing this- I'm not ready to blog about my (relatively mild but still really fucking unpleasant) trip to the psychiatrist last week, but this makes me feel a bit less lonely about it. I hope things become more manageable in future.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com