Hi Anne,

I`m glad you haven`t been affected by the ongoing problems at H@H - until relatively recently I would have been able to endorse your post : NEVER any problems with H@H - deliveries on time, regular as clockwork, in all sorts of weather,including thick snow.

However, current problems are being experienced by many of us, judging by the huge volume of complaints on Health Unlocked,the AC forums, as well as here. Communicating by e-mail is fine as long as you get a response, but as Suzanne has pointed out, this is not always the case. Believe me, when you have no injections left, and you are waiting for a reply to an e-mail; waiting all morning for a response on the phone;and waiting for a delivery which may or may not come, it is no picnic.

I applaud Suzanne`s decision to apprise NRAS of the situation, as their concern for the welfare of their members is huge, and does them much credit.

I look forward to the time when the current management team at H@H attain the high standards of their predecessors, then we can all say we have no problems with the service.

Take care,

Kathleen x

Does anyone know what, if any, response NRAS have obtained to their enquiries on our behalf?

So where do we go from here?

I think there are three main attack points:

1. The poor service and potential impact on critical treatments
2. The stress they are causing patients
3. Their use of a premium rate phone line for their contact centre which means that we have to pay them 5p and BT 2p a minute to call them. They should use an 0800 number, especially when wait times can be as much as 45 minutes

It might be a good idea for everyone to write to their MP so that multiple MP's then contact the health secretary - that might get attention?

We could draft a form letter for people to send in this thread.

Thoughts?

firstly every time i read a new post here my blood runs cold,

will try to answer what i know.

i phoned NRAS as you know and spoke to Lorraine, who in turn phoned me back .. she had a contact she knew from Healthcare and managed to speak to her who was apparently mortified at our plight, and was looking into it that day which i think was Thursday and said that she would get a statement together by the end of the day and Lorraine said it would be posted on this thread here, well nothing has been posted yet. i said i would phone Lorraine this week if i was still in trouble, but as you know i did eventually get through on the phone and my delivery has been confirmed for this Friday 10th January. please all keep your fingers crossed for me,

the operator from Healthcare told me that they had had major issue's with the phone line and BT and it has taken 3 weeks to sort out, that along with high call volume for the holiday peroid has caused a huge backlog.

and i have here the letter we have received from Healthcare which i will try and type .. i am tired by this time in the day but will do my best, Kathleen please feel free to add if i've missed anything.

letter was headed :

DISRUPTION TO DELIVERIES AND RESTORATION OF NORMAL SERVICE

i am writing to apologise for the difficulties that have been caused to some of our patients over the last few weeks while we have suffered a series of disruptions to our services. we hope that you and your family have not been affected and offer our sincere apologies. i would like to take this opportunity to explain what happened, what we are doing to rectify thesituation and how we will ensure good service is maintained in the future.

over the last twenty years, Heathcare at Home has been privileged to care for many thousands of patients. During that time the breadth of treatments we provide has expanded and demand has grown, as most patients have chosen to have their care at home. Today we care for over 150.000 patients and pride ourselves at the quality of service we deliver.

Howver, no matter how carefully we plan there are always some things that are outside our control. Since October we have seen a shortage in the supply of certain key medicines and on top of planned growth,
we have had to manage the unexpected transfer of a large number of patients from another homecare provider. at the end of November, a peak in telephone calls, caused by this additional demand, temporarily exceeded our telephone service provider's capacity and we are aware that for several days there were periods when callers could not get through to us. We are very sorry for the anxiety that this may have caused to you in addition to the inconvenience of having deliveries rescheduled.

Fortunately, we have contingency plans in place and an on-going programme of upgrades and improvements to our systems and processes, and this provided the additional capacity we needed to quickly start to recover services, as well as to provide additional back-up capacity to deal with any similiar situation that might arise in the future. i am pleased to advice that since the 6th december we have been steadily clearing the backlog of orders and should have re-established normal service levels by 24th December. we are aware that the telephone service has remained ureliable at peak times but have put extra call handlers on duty and are working with our telephone network provider to deal with their capacity issues. in the meantime if you can't get throug and it is not convenient to call back later you can email us at hahaenquiries@hah.co.uk - all emails are dealt with within 24 hours.



end of letter!

well as i posted i did email first thing Friday morning an no reply.

if i get my red mist and i am still having problems then i will have to contact my MP etc. i will see what Friday brings, i do not want to be made ill by this fiasco, and i did feel very stressed dealing with it.

Suzanne

Suzanne - I am going to make your blood run cold or make you explode. One or the other. So apologies in advance.

Let's just look at the premium rate phone number issue. Forget the crucial issues of continuity of supply and customer satisfaction. Let's just think about the normal operation of the call centre.

Their figures: 150,000 patients.

Let's assume that 50% of those patients have a land line calling plan that includes 0870 numbers free so it doesn't cost them a penny no matter how long they hang on

That's 75,000 patients

Let's assume each patient calls H@H four times a year.

That's 300,000 calls a year

Let's assume that each call has a wait time to pick up of 5 mins and 5 mins talk time

That's 3,000,000 minutes

Now for the cost per minute - this can depend on whether you use a land-line or a mobile. Cost varies between 7 and 16 p / min. Let's be generous and say that no-one uses a mobile, and use the lesser rate. Of the 7p, BT takes 2p and the balance goes to the called company

3,000,000 mins @ 5p a minute

That's £150,000 a year.

I could be way off in some of my assumptions, but I have tried to favour the company over the patients wherever there is room for doubt. There may be many other factors that I haven't taken account of but even if I am still wrong by a factor of 50% that's still a very large sum of money.

So there's a very simple question that needs to be put to them by someone. 'Given that the government is outlawing 0870 numbers from Jun 2014 for use by customer care lines in retail business, what steps are you taking to switch to an 0800 number (or an 0300 number so that at most the caller will pay a local call charge).'

A supplementary question might also be, 'And what steps will you take to reimburse customers who have incurred premium rate charges whilst calling your company to chase overdue deliveries caused by your acknowledged service lapses.'

hi Paul,

well those figures make for blood running cold and also me getting my rest mist!! but bearing in mind Healthcare should phone you two weeks before due delivery date and you then phone them on the morning of delivery once every eight weeks with a call approx. 5 minutes i could cope with the original telephone number.

and Jayne how wonderful you have an 0800 number, another bonus that we share things on here,

summarising the main issue's i've encountered re this January 10th are as follows,

1. i never received my call a fortnight before delivery date and after reading the posts on here i panicked, this started me trying to phone Healthcare on the 0870 number, for a day with absolutely no reply with three calls lasting twenty five minutes.

2. i phoned the next morning and got straight through at 8.a.m. to be told they had not received my prescription from the hospital yet, and having again read on the forum that people were being fobbed off again i panicked, i then phoned my Rheumy Nurse a couple of days later ( as New Years Day was in between ) and she said they had just faxed it over ( so in fact they hadn't received my script ) i then tried to phone them back with no answers on the phone again with the 01 number Paul had now given me.

3. i then contacted NRAS who made Healthcare aware of my and all plights on here, and was told a statement would be issued from them .. non has been posted that i can see.

4. i then tried Healthcare again and got through at 5.30 thinking no way would i last Thursday, and they confirmed they had my script and delivery would be due on the 10th January as originally planned.

5. they haven't replied to my email even though they state they will within 24 hours, i wrote to the email on the letter i copied here i see Jayne has a different email address.

so if and i stress if delivery arrives and Healthcare are back to normal by the time my next delivery is due then i will settle at that, but if i read ongoing problems from people posting here or again get them myself i will have to put together a letter for my MP.

i will make my Surgery aware of this issue tomorrow when i go for my monthly bloods, and my 6 monthly Rheumy appointment is at the end of January so i am hoping i get reports from them that Healthcare are functioning normally again as my Rheumy Nurse says she has to deal with them a lot.

so please keep your posts coming on here good or bad so that we can access the situation as time goes on, i will let you know about my delivery on Friday.

Suzanne

i would say for the reasons you have posted about with the cost of calls Paul,

no idea how Jayne got the number but it's gratefully received.

Suzanne

The phone numbers etc are on their website... This is the full list just in case people are using different drugs


We are experiencing a very high volume of calls to the main customer services number 0870 600 1540 and as a result, some of our patients have been experiencing long waits. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and we are working around the clock to fix the problem.

If your enquiry relates to a specific condition or treatment we ask that you contact us on one of the following telephone numbers:

Cimzia: 0800 917 6853
Enbrel: 0845 601 2816
Fertility treatment: 0800 328 5323
Forsteo: 0800 783 2943
Growth hormones: 0870 333 2833
HIV: 0800 783 0211
Haemophilia: 0870 241 6135
Humira: 0870 333 2834
Mental Health: 0800 587 0807
Methotrexate or Metoject: 0845 303 2336
Multiple sclerosis treatment: 0800 096 4573
Oral oncology: 0870 366 4640
Private treatment: 0870 366 4640
Pulmonary Hypertension: 0800 088 4412
Self-funded treatment: 0870 366 4640
Transplant: 0800 917 9665
Vitaflo: 0800 756 7590

If your enquiry relates to none of the above please contact the customer care team on 0870 600 1540 or email us at hahenquiries@hah.co.uk

If you are telephoning for the estimated time of arrival for your delivery, these are published at 8pm the night before delivery on our website at www.hah.co.uk/eta

Thank you for your patience at this busy time. Please be assured that we are doing everything we can to clear the backlog of calls and we will respond to you as soon as we can.

well thought i'd post my update

checked on the site last night re my delivery .. said between 12.30 and 2.30 p.m. today which was due date, i then phoned them this morning as this is the way i have always checked in the past. phoned the 0800 number which i see is for Cimzia and had about a 10 minute wait, started to get that anxious feeling then someone answered. delivery time was confirmed to me, she said this is for your Humira delivery, so it must be that each number is for different meds etc. as posted above, as i've never been asked if it was for my Humira before unless this was a coincidence.

but was happy to phone a free phone number. while i was on the phone i said are things back to normal now and she said nearly, the Manager's have been working hard to resume normal service. so i said by the time my next delivery is due in eight weeks then there should be no problems and she said yes.

well driver arrived at midday so half an hour early, had a chat with him about it all and he said they couldn't get through on the phone's either before Christmas, asked him if he was with the new company he said no that's starting end of this month, but they are contractor's so waiting to see if they will still be delivering for Healthcare.

so as i type i am happy to report delivery day went smoothly after the nightmare i had arranging it.

hope this happens for all that are due their deliveries soon,

over and out!

Suzanne

Hi All

We've had an update from Healthcare at Home this afternoon, which may be of interest. See separate thread on this:
http://www.nras.org.uk/m...;m=56533&#post56533

Kind regards

Victoria