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Healthcare at Home

I have been using Glivec for over 9 years now, and it has been working brilliantly. A few years ago, my hospital decided to use Healthcare at Home (HAH) of Burton-upon-Trent as a provider of the drug – the hospital could save money because HAH, as a pharmacy, would not pay VAT for the drug, whereas the hospital pharmacy would.

The first couple of times, the service was not smooth, and delivery failures meant they had to send them by post. After that, the service improved, although minor changes were made to delivery times, etc – they can only give morning or afternoon deliveries, and sometimes they delivered outside the promised timings.

I had an appointment with my local haematology department on 3rd December. HAH phoned me on 4th to arrange delivery, and quoted 13th December, would I like morning or afternoon? I was surprised at the delay and I warned them that I would be running very short, but I would have the delivery in the morning (0800-1300).

“Don’t worry”, they said.

December 13th came round and, I waited in all morning. When the driver had not turned up, I contacted HAH and they referred me to their website. I checked on the driver’s estimated time of arrival, and he had reported, at 13.21, that it was a delivery failure due to no answer being received.
At 14.20, I phoned HAH, and eventually got a human to speak to, at about 1500. I asked if the driver could return to my address, as I had been in all day. They replied that he was 10 minutes from base. I said that he could not possibly drive from my home to Burton in under 2 hours. (I don’t believe that he actually attempted delivery). I said that I was running very short of tablets, so the HAH representative said he would have them couriered to me that afternoon or evening.

I had to go out, but my wife stayed in all evening. When I got home, she told me that no delivery had been made.

I emailed HAH to tell them about it (as they were closed). I have received no reply. I took my last tablet yesterday, and there is no prospect of a delivery. They still have not replied to my emails. I phoned this morning, and the call was answered by the HIV department. They could not phone oral oncology, so they would email them instead.

I would warn anyone who is asked to use HAH to make sure that they have plenty of Glivec in stock, because they appear to be extremely (and dangerously, in my case) unreliable.

Happy Christmas

Richard

Hi Richard,

This is an obvious example of 'poor performance' to say the least. We, as the CMLS group can make a complaint to service providers such as HAH on behalf of patients.

Please let me know....did you use the HAH contact us form here...? http://www.hah.co.uk/contact-us
and/or the treatment tracker service here... http://www.hah.co.uk/eta

Sandy

Hi Sandy

Yes, I have used both those pages. HAH do not appear to reply to emails on their contact page (and I was not even abusive, even on the third one I sent, which was yesterday)

It was from the ETA page that I found out that the driver had reported non-delivery.

HAH can offer no explanation, nor can I speak to a human being, except as an initial contact, and then I am queued for ages.

I have been given the number of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to make a complaint, because there seems to be no way of making comments to HAH, or complaining.

Regards

Richard

I eventually managed to speak to someone, who could see what the problem was, and they said that they had to speak to another department (presumably logistics). Would I hang on for a few minutes? I was asked, I replied positively, and then the phone went dead.

I am not happy with them, nor their standards of care or complaint procedure

Hi Richard,

We will get back to you.

Sandy

They're a disaster, aren't they?

My health insurance company wanted to use them to deliver dasatinib to me. I agreed, but at each month they'd bugger things up in new and novel ways. Generally it would cause me lots of hassle and stress once a month.

The last straw was when my consultant tried to send them a prescription but they wouldn't take it because it was "too early" and then 2 days before they were due to dispense they requested one from him, but he was away on holidays by that point. Took 2 days of phone calls between me, them, the consultants secretary and the health insurance company to sort it out.

Enough was enough and the health insurance company allowed me to collect the drugs myself from the London Clinic - incidentally, I am literally on the bus at the moment on the way to collect my next month's supply. It's a bit of an inconvenience, but I know I'll get the pills when I need them and it's at least predicable!

I've spoken to quite a few people who've had to use them - not one person has had a positive experience.

David.

I had a call from my local hospital, who claimed that it was their mistake - that they hadn't sent the prescription off.

I knew that this must be untrue, as HAH had contacted me the day after my hospital appointment, arranging delivery.

The hospital do not stock Glivec any longer, except for 7 days emergency, and they kindly gave me that, which I have just collected.

When I returned home, I had a call from the head pharmacist, Chris, at HAH who said that the couriered drugs had been delivered, and signed for at 9.30pm. He told me the name of the signee, and I pointed out that the Glivec had been supplied to the wrong address!

As far as HAH were aware, there was no problem.

He has now realised that there have been 2 almighty c*ckups: 1) by the delivery driver not bothering to deliver, and 2) sending the replacements to the wrong address. Chris has promised to deliver my full supply by the end of the week.

Watch this space!

Thanks very much, Sandy and David, for your help, support and information. I will keep it on file for the next time, which, of course, will be very soon.

Regards

Richard

After all this trouble, I have just taken delivery of my Glivec, the full amount until my next hospital visit.
Thanks for all your help and advice, Sandy and David, you may well have saved my life!

A very happy Christmas to all, and as good a healthy New Year as you can possibly have.

Regards

Richard

Great news Richard. Hopefully this will have a knock-on effect at HAH and they will realise that there are serious holes in their system. I think they (and others like them) may be suffering from the after effects of a large US organisation who recently pulled out of home care delivery contract.

Great news for you though, I am glad we could help, have a wonderful christmas and new year.

Sandy

I have just had a similar problem with EVOLUTION from the Hammersmith.
They took nearly 2 weeks to deliver and then when they did arrive I had 2 more deliveries on the next 2 days.
I reported it to the head of pharmacy and to prof Apperley.
HH are monitoring very carefully.

Evolution homecare company was adamant they had delivered my drugs to me at a time when there was nobody in the house all day!

Next day I was expecting the delivery and of course nothing arrived. When I insisted they do a double check, the drugs had been delivered in a different street, signed for by goodness knows who, and of course this was a real danger in case they took them, as well as me not having them.

It took a great deal of persuasion to convince them I was right and the delivery driver wasn't I took it right up to the top of the company, via kings and myself. And guess what, next time problems as well.

Now the hospital order's them 2 weeks before I will run out. So far its working well.

This seems to be a growing problem.
Pennie

My "missing" imatinib, delivered to wrong address, turned up today. I phoned HAH, and they have asked me to keep them until they collect them.

The main problem appears to be that, although the dispensary recognised my new address, the did not bother to tell the logistics team, who, therefore, delivered to the old address!

Problem solved, but it could have been disastrous.

Richard

They totally messed up my last prescription. They left it hanging around their office for days despite the fact they'd been told I was about out of supply.

Then when chased for it they discovered they were nearly out of stock and didn't have enough even for me.

So they sent what they had. But late and past when I ran out!

Then when they arrived they didn't have batch number or dates on - they were just odd tablets cut off a variety of foils.

Then they sent the balance due - also late.

I've escalated a complaint with their CEO and with all the facts. It's taken him 2 weeks to let me know that he is going to start to investigate what went wrong. He's also told me they've got serious problems and are overwhelmed with service problems and complaints!

I'd strongly urge anyone who is reliant on this service to ensure you have adequate supply and that you directly contact your NHS clinical team if you've any difficulties and so they can take appropriate action.

My clinical team have been excellent and are right across this but it does concern me that others are walking into problems with this company blissfully ignorant that it's a bigger problem then just their individual supply.

The NHS Choices web site just about sums up what's going wrong with Healthcare at Home. It makes sad and worrying reading.

http://www.nhs.uk/Services/pharmacies/ReviewsAndRatings/DefaultView.aspx...