"Communication lacking"

Our elderly mother was an in patient and was termed as having 'capacity,' however, this capacity was obviously not always there. Staff would tell her things which she could not fully remember, got parts of, worried about or ignored totally and yet staff spoke to her without telling us, her daughters, what was going on. We found communication with medical staff difficult to organise, if we did manage it usually they insisted on talking in front of our mother which was inappropriate and meant we could not ask questions which we wanted answers to. Towards the end of her life the pain control given on the ward was inadequate, for a day and a half, which I may add seemed endless, we asked for more regular pain relief to be given, only when the Macmillan nurse was called in did pain relief become effective. I wonder why the staff on the ward are not capable of administering the same relief resulting in the unnecessary suffering we saw our mother endure and the distress it caused us. The nurses on the ward, on the whole, were friendly and adept at their work.