"Someone on the switchboard who ..."

What could be improved

Someone on the switchboard who knows what they're doing. I live in Gloucestershire and was in Lincolnshire for just Monday and wanted to visit my step-father, whom my half-brother's ex-wife assured me had been a patient in the Hospital the previous Friday. I telephoned the hospital from the M1 but was told they had no record of his admission or discharge. I was unable to find out where he had been taken and had to come back down south without seeing him.