Have you met the injection booking glitches?

I was up early today, the day I was going to have my first jab, 10.35.
The radio said there were new roadworks in the area, so I set off early.
Changed route when they said there was an accident on the planned route, but I had plenty of time.
Parked up, 5 minutes to spare, stood in a queue for about 10 minutes, man asked for my name.
I gave name and time to him…Not on the list. Showed me the list. Asked if I had a booking number.
I didn’t.

Sadly, I came home again, miffed. I must have mucked up the appointment, not got it confirmed.
Tried to rebook. It told me I’d missed my appointment!
Then spent half an hour or so on the phone trying to work out what had gone wrong.
Booking numbers given to phone bookers, apparently not to online bookers.
I was asked if I had a confirmation email?
No, I didn’t. Phone bookers get them.
So I have wasted an entire morning, driven 20 miles, and still no jab!!
Grrrrr.

So sorry this has happened to you BB. Can you phone 119 and explain? I

I rang 119 and had a long chat with them, they are looking into the problem now, to find out what happened. I’d printed off the appointment but didn’t take it with me (hindsight is a wonderful thing!), so at first I thought I must have got the day wrong. I can be a bit of a scatterbrain, so first blamed myself. When I got home and found the print off it confirmed that I was right all along but now I have to make a new pair of appointments.

I can’t explain Bowlingbun’s unfortunate experience, but I can give general advice.

To occasions like this, always take along something in print if at all possible.

If you get a letter detailing the appointment, then take the letter.

If you are given a number over the phone then write down the number immediately.

If you do something on line, then try to print a web page that gives your appointment details.

If you get an e-mail, then print that and take it.

Smart phones are useful gadgets but I don’t think we have yet reached the stage where they can bail us out of any difficulty. They can be a handy backup, however.

The root of the problem was that I had definitely made an appointment, as soon as I got home and tried to rebook the computer gave me a reprimand saying “You have missed your appointment”.
However the glitch was somewhere between me booking the appointment and the confirmation.
I always print things off, even an address if I’m going to collect something I’ve bought on ebay.

However, if you don’t know you are supposed to have a confirmation, you don’t know that you should have had one.
I was on the list enough to get told off, but not on the list at the hospital!!?

I received texts telling me to click on a link to book our appointments (they were one use only links requiring either date of birth (me) and NHS number (for S). How many people with a LD actually know their NHS number?! However, as I wanted the appointments one after the other, I completed the phone-the-surgery-challenge to book them. Despite having them booked I continued to receiving different texts inviting us to book. I hope these will stop now we have had the jab.

Melly1