"I attended for a biopsy as a day ..."

What could be improved

I attended for a biopsy as a day care patient, was asked to arrive at 7.15am, was taken to the day ward which was also being used as an inpatient ward. I was informed I was 4th on the list and fully expected I would be going down to theatre by lunch or shortly after. The morning came and went, the afternoon also, I was told their was emergencies but should be going down about 6pm bearing in mind that I had not had a meal since 6pm previous evening and the last drink I had at 9pm. I had to ask the staff to ring theatre as the time was getting later and later, they rang the theatre and I was told it would be 9pm which again came and went, the staff nurse who should have taken charge, showed no leadership qualities at all and never even spoke to me at all during the day or evening. The night staff appeared at 9pm, all from an agency, no cross over of staff from the day, asked staff to ring the theatre, no reply and no call back from bleeper, eventually at 10.45pm I insisted that someone came from theatre to let me know what was happening. Someone came from theatre and aplogised and said I would not now be going down to theatre until next day as there had been several emergencies. You can imagine that by this time I was feeling quite unwell and needless to say dehydrated. I informed the gentleman from theatre that I could have accepted the emergencies but they should have known before this time that I would not be going down and that they should have informed me prior to this so I could have had a drink and something to eat. The nurses did offer to call the kitchen to see if they could get me a meal but I declined and said I would have a couple of pieces of toast as I had got past eating by then.

Anything else?

I did go to theatre next day, when I was ready to leave the staff insisted on someone coming directly in to reception to collect me as a matter of health and safety, which obviously did not apply the previous evening. I would also like to comment on the evening staff, 1 staff nurse in the mens day ward + 1 aux + 1 staff nurse in ladies ward + 1 aux, none of them with any experience of these ward and at times did not know what they were doing as they only had a very brief overview before other staff left, even though I was still waiting to go down to theatre the aux asked if I wanted some water as she did not know what was going on or looked at any of the patients notes.

I have already had a bad experience at Burnley hospital in August and thought no I will go to Blackburn this time but it would appear they are all the same.