"Poor communication leads to cancelled procedure"

My wife was admitted to Broomfield hospital Chelmsford in mid January 2014 for a Mastectomy.

We arrived on the Friday day before the operation for preparation.

The nurse came in to take blood pressure, temperature etc.

Well for a start she did not seem to know how to use the blood pressure machine. She tried to wrap the band around about six times on her arm. We finally made it. Then came the taking of her temperature. She struggled to get the gadget out of the case.

I asked her if she was doing the op tomorrow. She said no which I was relieved to hear.

She did admit that this was her first day in using this equipment. Surely she should have had a qualified nurse mentoring on the use of this equipment?

Another nurse came in to take details of any medication my wife was on as she is diabetic and also any allergies which she has against rubber.

So the day of the op my wife was being prepared to go to the theatre, the consultant was reading the notes when he discovered that she was allergic to latex. Apparently the theatre had no note of this. Therefore the op was cancelled because the theatre had to be cleared of all the rubber which we were advised could take up to two hours.

The surgeon said he would not be able to reschedule today because he was too busy.

I think there was a lack of communication between the two departments so I'm not very impressed with Broomfield.

So now she has got to make another appointment and go through the process of having blood tests etc which She did about three weeks ago.

This has made my wife very stressed about all this.