"Care of my mother in A&E, vascular and old age..."

Anything else?

This admission to A& E was great - my mother of 89 was an emergency case. She had a very quick procedure, explained to us by the (locum) consultant. Transfer to the vascular ward was good - we struck a tremendous registrar on her two recent occasions in the Royal Free. He took the time to talk us through the situation and options. Then we fell into a vacuum. The consultant on call this last week never contacted us, the family, to discuss a change in treatment, despite leaving a number for three days and constant badgering of staff and bleeping the relevant number. Another registrar who was supposed to contact us, never did. Only when I blew up, after three days of waiting, did I get any action - from the duty registrar. The junior doctor on vascular this last week was incredible and only courtesy of him did we get any action. Two nurses on vascular were great - the others we came across were not. Once my mum transferred to the old age ward, we realised the change in operations - old people just left in a non specialist ward, with no one really taking responsibility. The sister in charge yesterday should not be in such a position - hopeless. We are left tonight without my mum having her blood thinning injection from the district nurse as this was not organised by this sister on the ward - despite her saying it had been. I have never experienced such disorganisation and a break down in communication in all my 40 years of working. A scandal that as a tax payer I am paying for this level of service - and that the gems that do exist have to operate in such chaos.