"RSPCA Customer Focus Group April 2017"

A review of RSPCA Greater Manchester Animal Hospital by Brian carr written on Tuesday 4th of April 2017

I understand the Salford clinic has a customer focus group planned for the 05.04.17. I am unable to attend, however, this is my recent experience of the service. This is written with no idea off the financial resources available and in the spirit of being constructive. I have been a professional structural organizer.

First, I must point out that there is no criticism of staff or organisation who are dedicated, having great regard for animal welfare doing a tough job, but, and it's a very big but, treat the human customer as an superfluous appendage, intentionally or not. Having seen some of the people they have to deal with, I can sympathize, but not accept this. There seems a disregard for the client, who is given multiple abortive appointments, delayed pet treatments & conflicting clinical opinion, in my case ones that may have resulted in suffering to the pet. Priorities exist I know, but this is a management issue. Misinformation to cover these failings seems another cultural trait within the organisation, it erodes the trust and could easily become adversarial, perhaps it does; that may also explain my second concern below.

These may be mistakes, but the result is the same. My opinion is this is driven by administrative incompetence, a strong word, but the only one I can find. Each and every interaction in the chain of admin seems plagued by miscommunication & misinterpretation with a dismissal attitude to clients wishes and quasi respect by some operatives who seem to quietly revel in unaccountable power. This is clearly grating on the frustrations of other operatives. It seems the right hand does not know what the left does. If there were one piece of advice, it would be to put one dedicated experienced administrator in place from a commercial background with a remit to get the act together and train employees / volunteers in the basic effective requirements of smooth unbroken accountable administration. What I can categorically state above all, is that administrative issues are directly affecting clinical outcomes.This is very serious and must be addressed. It would be ironic if these failings led to the prosecution of the organisation.

Secondly, the approach to obvious security concerns at this location have been addressed in the most brutal target hardening of the premises that leave the location looking like a downtown Bronx shelter. This needs a sympathetic review that meets not only the risk, but also client and employee aspirations, reflecting hope, not failure.

Thirdly, communication with the client must be addressed. referring clients to expect phone calls, that rarely happen, and when they do incomplete information conveyed, is counterproductive. My experience rivaled GroundHog day on several occasions. There seems no line of contact when a pet is in the system, phone lines are it seems a low priority, this adds a sense of alienation and helplessness to the clients anxiety. I hope these observations are taken in the spirit of constructive proposals and conveyed within the meeting off the above..

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