"Disorganised and chaotic"

Anything else?

Further to a review I recently wrote, my mother was taken into hospital for an operation this week. The admission paperwork advised admission time was 7.30am so naturally we and other people turned up shortly after 7am but the surgical admissions department did not open its doors until nearly 7.30 meaning waiting outside with my mother sitting in a wheelchair in cold and unpleasant weather. The very pleasant admissions lady very helpfully advised to contact at 2pm to find out which ward my mother was in. She said that even though the slip of paper with the numbers on said 4pm we should call at 2pm and this was explained to everyone. At 2pm when I rang a very off hand, curt and patronising lady told me my mother was still in theatre and to ring back at 4pm. She spoke to me as if I was stupid and explained that there is pre-op anaesthetic, theatre, then post-op. What she told me I found out later to be completely untrue and she clearly could not be bothered to check on the whereabouts of my mother who's operation had in fact completed and she was on the ward 1 hour 20 minutes earlier, at 12.30pm. Personal property was only brought to the ward that evening during visiting hours so she had been without this all day. When discharged, my mother was told she would be discharged at lunchtime so she phoned me to say that was likely. When I rang and spoke to the ward sister she informed me this was not the case and that my mother might be released that day. I was told they would phone me when this was know. When my sister turned up that afternoon for visiting she was greeted with, "so you've arrived to get your mother" so they had forgotten to contact me and my sister had to call me and I had to travel for 90 minutes to collect her. Some of these aspects could be so easily resolved with very simple procedures and would enable patients to be discharged much sooner and save many thousands of bed hours per annum. These are by no means the worst examples we have encountered with patient discharging. Mostly terrifically dedicated and caring people working there, but the processes and procedures are so badly organised that it is sadly comical to observe.Hopefully someone will read some of these reviews and spend 30 minutes implementing some very simple processes to prevent recurrences.