"Patient care and care of family members"

My mother is in her eighties and was admitted to A&E UHD with possible sepsis as diagnosed earlier that day by her GP.

We had to take her to A&E ourselves as a blue light ambulance ordered by the GP still had not arrived 3 hours later and no time scale was given as to when the ambulance might arrive  .

A diagnosis of pneumonia was made .

My mother is completely deaf, cannot sign , has difficulty lip reading and understanding people and following instruction. She also has mental health concerns and related anxiety . She is generally frail and has limited mobility, chronic lower back pain and was acutely unwell.

Due to these very relevant concerns, my sister - who was still with my mother as I had left - had asked if she could stay a few more hours to help my mum settle .

She was told by a nursing sister that like everybody else she would have to leave at the normal time, despite voicing her concerns about my mother’s particular psychological and communication needs. She was asked by the nurse if my mother could lip read and my sister said yes but not very well and it was agreed it would help to write things down .

My sister rang me very upset when she returned home as she said there was no empathy or compassion shown to my mother’s particular communication needs (which I feel are an integral part of patient care) and for my mother having a family member with her would have alleviated the sudden distress of her illness and the isolation caused by being left alone at this initial stage of her hospitalisation . My mother had asked us previously not to leave her. We are our mother’s carers and are greatly involved everyday in her care needs . 

I rang and spoke to the nurse and also whilst in tears myself, I asked did they realise the distress this decision had caused family members who were already very upset at the serious illness our mother had. I was informed by the nurse that whilst they were sorry, it was the policy and I could make a complaint if I wanted to. 

I said making a complaint didn’t help my mother or us right now, and no account was being taken regarding my mother’s particular disability . I was told that the department often deals effectively with patients who have disabilities . 

Dealing effectively does not seem to allow some degree of flexibility to meet a patient’s specific needs especially in such serious circumstances . It seems patient-centred care is compromised by a generalised policy which does not do as much as possible to meet a patient’s and caregivers’ emotional needs at a time of great worry .