I have been to two NHS (National Health Service) hospitals in England in recent months. The first of them is not my usual hospital, and I went there for some ophthalmic appointments, as there is no ophthalmology department at my usual hospital. At this hospital, a member of clinical staff greets you at the door, they take your temperature and put a sticker on you to say that you have been temperature checked. They also hand you one of their masks, that you must put on, even if you have arrived with your own mask. There are plenty of members of staff there to direct you to where you need to go, and they have waived the charges in the car park (so you don't have to queue to use the machine to pay). They have also implemented a one-way system in the corridors, so that you do not come in close proximity to people walking in the opposite direction to you.
Contrast this with my local hospital. They check your temperature at the main entrance, but only once you get through the revolving door, and where there is no enforced social distancing in the queue, and people just keep backing up behind you as they come through the revolving door. If you show up in a mask, that's good enough, even though some available face coverings filter as little as 3% of particulates from the wearer's mouth. If you don't have a mask, you can grab one from a box of masks on a table. When you get through the door, it is a complete free-for-all. The person at the door told me to just go directly where my appointment letter said. There is no one-way system, and there are people who have removed their masks in the narrow corridors where they loiter to speak to one another.
When I got to the outpatient area I needed to go to, the closed door had written on it "Stop! [with a cute stop sign graphic] check in at reception before entering the area." The main reception was about a six minute walk back in the other direction, and I wasn't even sure that there was anyone there when I walked past, so I tried to phone the department I was going to. I got connected to the switch board and when I eventually got through, the phone rang and rang for several minutes, and nobody picked up. Eventually I saw someone come out of the door to where I was going. I asked them if it was OK if I just went in, they said that they did not work there (despite having a hospital lanyard and ID), but that there was another reception through the door around the corner.
So I decided to go in. By this time, it was about eighteen minutes past my appointment time. I spoke to a staff member there, who said they could check me in. They asked for my appointment details, only to tell me that the doctor had just gone home. I asked the staff in there about the sign on the door that tells you not to enter 'the area' until you have checked in. They say that the reception referred to is the one through the door, and that the intended meaning of the sign is that you should come through and go straight to the reception. I tell her that is not at all what the sign says you should do, and ask if she expects patients to be telepathic.
They also did not waive the parking charges, so I had to re-enter the main building to queue for the machine.
I got a rescheduled appointment a week later. So I went again. Last time I was there, I made my phone call by going out of an open side door of the building where my appointment is. This door has a card-swipe lock, but is propped open. You are supposed to enter through the main entrance and follow corridors connecting the buildings to get your appointment location. This time, I walked straight to that door so I did not have to deal with the nonsense at the entrance. I noticed that the sign on the door of the outpatient area where my appointment is no longer has the asinine message about not entering until you have checked in at the reception on the other side of the door. This time, the doctor had not already gone home.
I walked back to my car afterwards, thinking I had been pretty smart in avoiding the entrance, but then I realized I still needed to go through the main entrance to pay for my parking at the machines. So I approached the front door again. This time they had disabled the revolving door, so that it stayed open, but there is still a queue of people trying to get in with little observance of social distancing. I saw someone in front of me moving to pick up a mask from the box of masks, and he put his bare hand on just about every mask in there before the security person told him "sir, you are already wearing a mask" (the masks are not individually wrapped). The same box of masks remained there afterward. (I have heard an almost identical anecdote from a relative who also went there, of someone trying to take multiple masks from the box).
