this has me foxed. What's the logic having a hospital appointment for a procedure and wait for ages.

Consultant \ surgeon was called to an emergency or delayed by a previous procedure perhaps? Procedure room wasn't available on time for some unforeseen reason?

Just a couple of possibilities

Imagine if your 5 minute procedure took 30 min and the consultant only allowed 5 minutes for you in his/her schedule?(btw, I don't think there is any 5 minute procedure in any hospital as the very basic safety checks take longer- so your post alraedy shows the type of person the hospital is dealing with)

You now have a multiple choice question.

Option 1 - Consultant stops everything and leaves you in limbo until he/she can come back to you as he/she has someone else scheduled for 12.50pm and can't be late or else this other person will moan about it on a discussion forum and make a complaint.

Option 2 - Consultant hits the 5 minute mark. Procedure not completed, so sends you home and tells you to make another appointment and notes down that 15 minutes is required. This ensures subsequent patients are not delayed and therefore will not make a complaint about timekeeping - sure who cares if such a decision is medical negligence once patients are seen at their exact time as that takes all priority

Option 3 - Consultant sees that the simple procedure has a small complication that could not have been picked up previously and thus requires 30-45min to ensure you recover quickly and well and don't have to have the procedure repeated. This may delay afternoon patients by a an hour or so, but consultant will not rush things as they take pride and care in their medical work and it is far more important for patients to get great care than to be worried about someone complaining they might be delayed by an hour or two

Please choose one of the options.

the hospital department that I’m a patient of are notorious for keeping people waiting an age. All the google reviews slate them.

None of the consultants carry out surgical procedures. I’ve had first thing AM appointments and been left sitting there 50 minutes. On one occasion they all arrived en masse about 30 minutes after my scheduled appointment and only then started seeing people. It all looked a bit leisurely, arriving with cups of tea / coffee in hand and of course, no thoughts of an apology or brief explanation once we started the conversation…

I’ve had a procedure once that was meant to be a few minutes but I know when he was still going 10 minutes later it was a bigger job than originally thought when he cut me open. Can happen. On waiting I just wish someone would come over and say they’re running a bit behind schedule and going to be an extra 30 minutes or 2 hours etc. at least you know than sitting there scrolling on your phone waiting for a door to open or head to lift. If it’s reasonable time you could go for a walk or what not. Would they be some accommodating if you arrived 30 minutes late?

Option 4 - The department tell people to arrive way earlier then the scheduled time of procedure because they want to have a queue of patients waiting so that hospital staff are not hanging around waiting.

Option 5 - There were some unexpected delays but the staff are not trained/bothered in effective communication so they leave patients waiting anxiously for hours with feck-all information, maybe they are too busy and the department need to hire a communication person.

Option 6 - There are many other possibilities and it is stupid to identify a few preferred options and limit the OP to choosing one.

Earliest appointment for shoulder surgery privately is December, and that's just for a consultation.

Have you not got a mouth on you ? After 30 mins I'd be asking.

This. The health system is not organised for your convenience.

Tis kinda funny seeing this in Consumer Issues. You are not a customer, you are a patient.

The customer is the funder, ie the government (or the insurance companies in private healthcare.) Maximising use of expensive resources like doctors is the goal of funders.

not so sure its necessarily a staffing issue. more a poor scheduling issue.

If for example a dentist knows your check up and clean takes 15 mins ,then he should only book 4 people per hour for check ups & cleans. Most likely they'll try squeeze a 5th appointment in to maximise throughput as there is demand. but unfortunately it seems that they regularly over book and then over run on appointments.