"Poor medical care"

My sister, aged 70, has spent four months in University hospital Durham along with two very short stays in Shottley Bridge Hospital.

Her medical care has been inconsistent to say the least. Most of her time has been as an inpatient on Ward 5 where there is no permanent Consultant. The system in place changes the Ward Consultant every Monday. This has resulted in numerous changes in treatment for my sister as one Consultant changes the decisions made by the previous Consultant. It's as if they all believe the previous decisions are wrong and they know better than their peers. This has resulted in a total lack of continuity of care, poor standards and quality of treatment. I'm convinced had the doctors not consistently changed medications etc my sister's condition would not have deteriorated to the extend it has or in the time it has.

In addition she has had no less than six moves between Shottley Bridge and Durham. On one occasion she was transferred to Shottley Bridge where, shortly after arriving the staff there needed to send her back to Durham as she has an infection that they could not treat. On another occasion she required treatment at Durham and even though there was no bed for her Shottley Bridge transferred her to Durham at 5pm. She then spent NINE HOURS in casualty before being moved to a cardiac ward at 2. 30 in the morning. Why was she transferred when there was no bed? Surely sense dictated she should have stayed at Shottley Bridge until a bed was available.

I think the treatment and constant movement of my sister is absolutely shocking and more so because of her age. I'm sure this would not have happened to a younger person. I sincerely hope that no one else I know has the misfortune to require the so called services of this trust.

I tried to post this information on the trusts website only to discover the required verification email did not arrive. Therefore the information is not on the trusts site - so even the opportunity to inform other people about the situation did not happen.