"Waiting and chasing staff for information"

We found out that even GP referals for admission are through A&E. How crazy, this puts pressure on A&E.

If your GP knows you need to be admitted for investigation who are A&E to question this? If I had not spoken out in A&E and insisted they did as the GP requested my husband would still be at home in agony. 4 hours later we are on a ward. It then took 3 hours for a doctor (who was on the ward) to make a decision as to whether or not they would keep him in or send him home.

In the end my husband said they had got 15 minutes or he was off. I stood at the reception desk and the receptionist looked straight through me. Eventually I said excuse me, can one of those 2 nurses stood chatting (about their weekend) tell that doctor sat there (2 meters away) my husband is going home.

Things then got under way within 5 minutes. The nurse said at 4pm she would not check him in until a decision had been made.

In an emergency (e. g. evacuation) how would my husband be accounted for? I think It is a total shambles in AMU, get organised and you will release beds a lot quicker.

I feel there is no communication between staff and patients. I witnessed an old man whose catheter was leaking, laying in his own urine for 1 and 1/2 hours despite telling 3 different members of staff. They all told him "we will sort it out". It begs the question when?

My husband has now been transferred to another ward lets hope things improve. We are both totally disillusioned with KMC at the moment. What's more it is not fair on the staff who are working their socks off. It's the system and the powers that be should be totally ashamed of themselves.