"Poor staff attitude during Covid testing at home"

About: North Devon District Hospital / Covid swabbing unit North Devon District Hospital Covid swabbing unit EX31 4JB

Posted by Suzzee (as a parent/guardian), 2 years ago

Only got sent an appointment for testing hub in Barnstable which is a bus away. Not been on public transport since start of covid so not happy.
After speaking with a friend they said see if you can get more local service. Seeing as the motto at the bottom of the page said “keeping services local” should be ok.
Rang up and after some explaining they said well we can get someone out to you. When they did the person was so disagreeable and angry telling us off all the time during the testing. Why was this a problem?
We have no transportation so surely it’s safer to get the test at home rather than risk being infected to have the test done in the next town. The tester should not have taken it out on us but complain to the person that arranged it.
We should have been given more options than assume we had transport or we were happy to take public transport.

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Janet Johnson

Staff Nurse (Northern Services), Covid-19 Testing Cell (Northern Services),

Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Staff and patient contact tracer

Submitted on 11/06/2021 at 16:16

Published on Care Opinion at 16:29

Dear Suzee
We are sorry to hear of your disappointment with the COVID 19 hospital home testing service you received.
We are concerned to hear you felt the nursing staff member attending your relative was angry and you felt they were telling you off, having investigated this was certainly not the intention and we can only but apologise.
We fully understand your concerns on use of public transport when attending for a COVID swab and encourage patients to use private transport if at all possible. If public transport is the only method of transport we advise masks, alcohol hand gel and 2m rule to reduce risks. Public transport is not ideal but we do not have resources to attend able bodied patients in their homes. We are gradually introducing different testing procedures including postal self testing and on the day testing of patients in the hope of making our system easier to use.. We hope we can offer this service to your relative in the future.
Thank you for taking your time in providing your feedback and we will continue to discuss your concerns with our booking and nursing staff to prevent re-occurrence of events.
Please do not hesitate to email again with any concerns
Kind regard
Janet Johnson
Staff Nurse
Covid19 Services
North Devon District Hospital

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Update posted by Suzzee (a parent/guardian) 2 years ago

I’m afraid using public transport was our only option which we had to use to get to the consultation. We did use masks of course and hand wash but traveling by bus the 2 metre rule was not an option. Luckily it was nice weather so all windows were open and we tried to minimise the length of the journey by walking where we could. Hopefully for next appointment my son will have had his first jab but would still not want to travel unnecessarily to a test. Just because he is able to walk to an appointment doesn’t mean he should due to the problems he is trying to resolve with with the specialist. We would certainly be interested in the postal test anything to prevent unnecessary journeys on public transport.

Janet Johnson

Staff Nurse (Northern Services), Covid-19 Testing Cell (Northern Services),

Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Staff and patient contact tracer

Submitted on 15/06/2021 at 10:53

Published on Care Opinion at 13:53

Dear Suzzee
Thank you for your reply.
For your relatives future appointments we would advise you to contact the COVID 19 Testing Cell at North Devon District Hospital at the earliest opportunity to discuss suitable COVID 19 swabbing pathways.
Contact can be made 7 days a week 08:00hrs-16:00hrs on 01271-337777 or by email
ndht.covidswabbing@nhs.net
Kind regard
Janet Johnson
Staff Nurse
Covid19 Services
North Devon District Hospital

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Christine England

Clinical Support Nurse Lead, Covid Swabbing Unit,

Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 29/07/2021 at 12:46

Published on Care Opinion on 30/07/2021 at 09:37

Dear Suzzee,
I wanted to update you that we have made a change following your feedback. We have listened to patients such as yourself who have difficulties with transportation; and are rolling out same day testing for patients prior to their procedures and self-swabbing packs that can be dropped off at a local community hospital. These are currently only available to specific patient groups, but are being continually expanded.
We rely on feedback to help us to improve our services so thank you again for taking the time to leave your comments..
Best wishes
Christine

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