Client cancellations

On my most recent placement I was situated at a Government paediatric service and was part of a multi disciplinary allied health team that provided services to both the clients and their families. The client load were all from the same catchment area, but barring that each was quite unique in regards to the reason for referral, family structure, support and. On numerous occasions during the four weeks, clients were unable to make the scheduled appointment and had to reschedule, to the point that the week I had planned for never ended up being like the week I experienced. The cancellations could appear out of the blue, and in some cases we were only aware of the cancellation after driving to the clients residence or school, only to be told they were unable. This could then cause problems with the family when booking new appointments, as the wait list was over 3 weeks, and some of the newer admissions grew extremely frustrated at this. While these cancellations proved an inconvenience to all parties involved, it did help me to further appreciate the complex nature of managing a paediatric patient, as well as some of the difficulties that the families and clients face. The cancellations were often related to illness, whether it be an acquired illness, a flare up of a chronic condition, or in some cases hospitalisation. I asked my supervisor if this was common, and was told that it was over the winter months, due to exposure to colds and illnesses from other children at school. My supervisor reported that at times there are whole weeks of cancellations. This in turn becomes a problem, as due to the number of clients it can take over a month to book another appointment. Due to the facility I was placed at being multi disciplinary in nature, any sort of incident that causes a client to miss appointments will in turn affect their progress in all therapy areas, and this can lead to further complications on top of their original diagnosis.
Once I began to appreciate the incredible difficulties faced by some families, in which the client's family had to juggle appointments at numerous facilities, as well as any other commitments made by other family members, I gained an appreciation for the why there was occasional conflict at rescheduling appointments.
While I could in no way relate to the stress that some if not all of the families were under, I did gain an appreciation for what had caused the stress, and realised that all of the staff at the facility were excellent at this. Admittedly they had much greater experience then I, but they were exceptional at communicating with the families and placing the clients' needs as a top priority. Every effort was made to help the families reschedule at the best time, but in some cases the client unfortunately still faced a long wait period.