"In Patient Stay"

Dear Fee Fee

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us and I am sorry to hear that your mother did not appear to receive the standard of care we aspire to at our hospital.

As I’m sure you can appreciate with such a busy environment it can be difficult to recall events that happened 3 months ago, but I have taken your comments to the ward sister to review and comment.

With regard to the admission, and without knowing who made the arrangements for this admission, it would be difficult to provide an answer as to why the ward was not ready for your mother and we can only apologise for the breakdown in communication that appears to have taken place.

If you wish to contact our PALS office on 01202 704886 with further information about your mother and her admission, the ward sister would be more than happy to investigate the processes followed leading up to this admission to identify any shortfalls.

Unfortunately, during the Christmas period there are times when wards rely heavily on the on-call doctor service for reviewing patients. Patients are prioritised depending on their medical needs; this is to ensure patients requiring urgent medical attention are seen first. Depending on when this admission took place, this could be the reason for the nurses being unable to give a time for the doctor’s arrival.

Ward 1 has been actively reviewing ways in which wards can reduce the pressures on-call doctors face to enable patients requiring their input to be seen in a more timely manner and now conduct an afternoon ward round Monday to Friday with a ward based senior doctor to ensure all patients are reviewed before the day ends and to try to limit the need for an on-call review out of hours.

The ward has recently implemented a Dementia Link Nurse to educate staff on the importance of gaining as much information from patient’s family members, especially when the patient is suffering from devastating conditions such as Alzheimer’s or Dementia. This enables the nurses to provide much more individualised care based on a better understanding of the patient’s needs.

Regarding overhearing the conversation between nurses whilst attending another patient there has been extensive work carried out on Ward 1 over the past 3 months with regards to privacy and dignity. They have reviewed practice as a result of listening to patient feedback and staff are now much more aware of the impact their actions and conversations have on their patients when providing personal care.

Once again I am truly sorry you found your mother’s experience on Ward 1 to be so disappointing. The Ward is making great steps to improve their standard of care delivery and is already seeing very positive results.

We value all feedback to enable us to continue to better the service we provide and will ensure the points you raised are relayed to all staff for their continual reflection and awareness

Regards

Sue Mellor

Head of patient Engagement