Royal Free Hospital has come under fire with more than a dozen people in the last six months making formal complaints about its appointment line.

Between April, the start of the current financial year, to September, 14 people put in official complaints to the hospital, in Pond Street, Hampstead, concerning the length of time it takes to get through to a hospital operator.

One woman, who did not want to be named, tried to make an appointment for her daughter with the hospital's gynaecological department after her GP's referral two weeks ago, but to no avail.

She said: "I received a letter from the Royal Free with a password and a number to call at the contact centre but whenever I tried to call, several times a day and all week, I couldn't get through.

"The one time I did have my call answered I was put on hold and then cut off."

She then tried to book her appointment using a dedicated NHS web site, but again, the system was unable to log her on. In desperation, her GP instead made her an appointment with the Whittington Hospital. She added: "Then I received a letter from the Royal Free on October 19, saying I was meant to be booking an appointment, please could I do so."

A hospital spokeswoman said: "During the early part of this year we identified certain problems associated with our patient contact centre.

"Since then significant effort has been invested in designing a service fit for purpose which culminated in the opening, on 21 August 2006, of a new, purpose-designed out-patient appointment centre (OAC).

"The number of calls received during the month of September was 24,566 - or over 1,000 calls per day."

She added that the call centre has 24 operators, three additional staff members have been recruited and a decision was recently taken to increase staff members by a further seven, bringing the total to 34.

The hospital is also considering providing new technology which would allow callers to leave their contact details for call-back rather than continue holding for operator response.