Why is everyone so incompetent these days?

pulliptears

In our case our family GP certified death at home. Then much to our amazement had to go once again, along with another GP to certify death for a second time at the funeral home because Dad was being cremated.

Cost of this? £71 for each Doctor.

Its known in the medical circle as "Ash Cash". Another completely unessential expense and another bit of paperwork for the bereaved to wait for.

Pennywise

uktim29 wrote: »

Funding is different to pay rises.

Maybe the Doctor has a backlog of other similar things to get through? That is well known for being a profession with one of the highest levels of stress.

So, deciding whether a post mortem is required or not, and then delaying the issue of a death certificate isn't important. How many of these do you think he has to do each day? The doctor or his staff clearly aren't able to prioritise what is important and what isn't. You can't tell me that he had so many sudden deaths among his patients that day that he didn't have the time to look at the notes for them all. What if he had decided that he couldn't have given a death certificate and that a post mortem was required - what if the post mortem revealed foul play - hardly helpful for the police to find themselves having to start an investigation several days after the death is it? The coroner had been chasing him twice daily (so he told me), the undertakers couldn't believe how long it was taking, and even the registrar of deaths was shocked that it took six days for a death certificate for a straight forward natural death.

Daytona_nev

Pennywise wrote: »

How right you are.n It's about time public and private sector organisations stopped using "tickboxes" and internal performance evaluations loved by the public sector. What we need is a measurement of what really matters and that is independent and direct questions of the end-user. Something like a massive extension of mori-polls so that the "man on the street" can have his say on how he feels about the service he receives. A huge extension of the mystery-shopper type of approach or Which consumer surveys. It's absolutely no use to joe-public if a hospital's internal tick-boxes say how well they're doing - what really matters is how the patients and their nearest & dearest perceive how good or bad the service was. In a call centre environment, it shouldn't matter how quickly a call is answered and dealt with - it's not rocket science to devise a way of evaluating how well it was dealt with which is far more important.

Part of the problem is that call centre performance is often measured quantatively by number of calls staff get through and within certain timeframes. There seems to be little governance of the quality of the service provided. The measurements they use don't lend themselves well to good customer service. There's more to it than the call queue waiting time. Companies don't seem to appreciate this.

exup

Sorry to hear about how everything was delayed - I think its just a case of a general apathy from people with regards to other people. Its not my problem, and more than my jobs worth.
The people that go the extra mile where I work are usualy the friendliest and happiest too, the other side of the coin of people who cant be arsed to do anything to help out their colleagues tend to be ignorant, and usually cocky too. just a reflection of modern society I feel.

Pennywise

exup wrote: »

Sorry to hear about how everything was delayed - I think its just a case of a general apathy from people with regards to other people. Its not my problem, and more than my jobs worth.
The people that go the extra mile where I work are usualy the friendliest and happiest too, the other side of the coin of people who cant be arsed to do anything to help out their colleagues tend to be ignorant, and usually cocky too. just a reflection of modern society I feel.

Yes, I quite agree. When I started a previous job, the working environment was fine, everyone helped eachother out, covered for eachother's sickies and holidays, and generally made sure that the customers were well served. Over a period of ten years in the same job and workplace, something like a "cancer" enveloped the place. As staff left and new ones joined, a general malaise spread. Some of the new staff were less helpful and more lazy/selfish and that attitude spread. By the time I left, some ten years later, the place was unrecognisable - no-one would ever help anyone else because it was never reciprocated - customers got a far worse service. But throughout this time, management/ownership of the business didn't change, pay & conditions were comparable - it was the people that had caused the rot, nothing else.

Back to my situation, it isn't the delays that cause the stress so much - if you're given a time scale you can work with it. What the problem was that promises were given that were not kept, repeatedly, day after day, week after week. Promised phone calls were never received. Many times I waited in for the post man when a document had been promised to have been sent the previous day, only to receive it days later dated long after it had been promised to have already been sent. I may be old fashioned, but if I promise to do something, I do it. If I know that I can't do something then I'm honest and say so. My customers know exactly where they are with me. I don't try hiding behind the tired old cliches of lack of resources/lack of training/lack of leadership etc - Whatever the reason I can't do something, I'll say why and have earned utmost respect in my job, even from people that I havn't actually helped - they appreciated not being fobbed off and treated as if they're fools.

Andy_L

Pennywise wrote: »

Something like a massive extension of mori-polls so that the "man on the street" can have his say on how he feels about the service he receives. A huge extension of the mystery-shopper type of approach or Which consumer surveys.

and somebody has to pay for that survey & we're back to uktim's point.

hev_2

Just to add...

If probate register is like the courts, it isn't funded by the taxpayer, it's funded by fees in the main. However the staff still have a duty of care and they should certainly consider the probably fragile state of the individuals they are dealing with.

Pennywise

Andy_L wrote: »

and somebody has to pay for that survey & we're back to uktim's point.

The cost would be far less than the savings made by scrapping all the "non jobs". Also, just think how much more effective and efficient everyone would be if they're not spending most of their time filling in forms to track targets. It would be a win-win situation.

uktim29

Pennywise wrote: »

The cost would be far less than the savings made by scrapping all the "non jobs".

I very much doubt it.

LinasPilibaitisisbatman

Whilst you have some reasonable disputes you are also being unreasonable

Yes I appreciate it was a stressing time for you, maybe the doctors had better things to do, like treat patients, arrange for treatment of the living etc

Im sure there are more important things in the NHS than dealing with the already deceased and thus it may see small delays