I Exercised My “Right to Opt Out”

After two months of waiting today I finally had the opportunity to sit down with an orthopaedic consultant and discuss the state of my injured knee.

I thought it worthwhile commenting on the Darent Valley Hospital’s outpatient self-service check in process where you will be greeted not by the (still in attendance) bored looking receptionists but rather one of these natty embedded Windows terminals in one of eight languages (presumably tailored to locale) linked through to the appointment booking system.

Nothing particularly remarkable about that but I was a little perturbed by the terminal’s insistance that I should answer both personal and demographic questions as part of the check in.  What had the demographics to do with anything?  Certainly none of the questions I saw (I went back later and quickly ran dummy personal data through for a look see) had any relevence to my visit.

I say insist as by refusing to accept the “disclaimer” (right) I was booted straight back to the entry screen with no further path; i.e. unless you hand over the information you could not check in.  Quite how this fits with the NHS’s long held “free to the point of delivery” stand if I am being directed to trade personal information in return for seeing a doctor or consultant I am unsure.

Needless to say when I asked the bored receptionists if there was a way of checking in without answering they offered to do it manually but did say they would probably ask me the same questions.  I made my point that I would therefore probably just not answer those bits.

Maybe that’s why I had to wait an hour for 90 seconds of appointment.