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"More information needed before and after hospital admission"

About: Southampton General Hospital / Cardiac surgery

(as a relative),

My wife underwent a mitral heart valve repair in April 2015. The actual operation was successful.

She was discharge from hospital after 20 days, but our follow up help has been non-existent. She was promised physio help in the home (we have not seen anyone), we were not given any advice on what not to do or what to do for her recovery.

She has now developed acute water retention (which I now know to be common). Why was this not explained? Because of this failing of help she has now been readmitted to cure the problem.

She was originally admitted to ward F10 for the heart surgery (day surgery unit). We took all her clothing etc with us, this was then stored on F10. When she needed her belongings they were stored on F10 which is closed at week-ends, would it have not been easy for someone to say as you're local only bring in bare essentials until you're on the ward, then bring in the rest. (Is this not simply advice?)

The hospital are doing these operations every day, whereas we as patients / relatives only experience this hopefully once in a lifetime, so who has the more experience in what is going to happen, and what should be done? Footnote to Hospital administrators: get someone to convey basic facts about our stay in hospital.

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Responses

Response from Southampton General Hospital 8 years ago
Southampton General Hospital
Submitted on 05/06/2015 at 11:06
Published on nhs.uk on 06/06/2015 at 01:01


We are truly sorry to read of the difficulties you have encountered and that you wife has required readmission to hospital. I hope that the team caring for her have managed to address the outstanding concerns for you. We have passed on your feedback to the matron for F10 regarding the delay in belongings being available. The trust is currently updating the 'Your stay in hospital' patient booklet which will be provided to all patients. It is anticipated that this will address the basic facts to help patients with their hospital admission. I am sorry that you did not benefit from this initiative.

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