"Hospital discharge"

Dear Anonymous

I am sorry to hear that your mother’s post-operative discharge care was not what you had hoped for or expected.

It can be difficult to respond in detail about a patients treatment or discharge without their case notes, so if you would be happy to share these with us then please contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALs) on 01202 704886 or PALS@rbch.nhs.uk . This would allow us to review your mothers discharge and aftercare in more detail.

In the meantime you have raised a number of points about the discharge and aftercare process which I will raise with the various department managers for their feedback.

I would be grateful if you could allow me until the end of next week to come back to you with a further response once I have heard from them.

Once again I apologise for the experience you and your mother had during her hip replacement in March of this year.

Regards Sue Mellor Head of Patient Engagement

Dear Anonymous

Thank you for your patience while I was waiting to receive information back from the department managers. Once again we are sorry to hear that you were not fully satisfied with the care your mother received from the hospital, and hope she is recovering well at this stage, further on in her rehabilitation.

In response to your concerns, and as part of our strict discharge criteria, all of our patients should be assessed by both Occupational therapists and Physiotherapists, and not discharged until fully mobile and able to manage at home, taking into consideration all aspects of the patients’ home situation and available equipment. It appears from your comments that this did not happen and obviously fell short of our quality standard in this instance. For that we apologise.

Your mother should have received an occupational therapy assessment post–surgery and her needs assessed. Patients listed for surgery would also have a pre-operative home visitation in addition, although on rare occasions this may not happen if the patient is a late addition to the surgical list.

It is unclear why she could not have been taken home in a normal car as our routine hip replacements are able to travel in standard cars, however if your mother was in the discharge lounge for a long period of time she may have become very stiff and this would have affected her mobility.

Regular mobilisation post operation is highlighted at various points throughout, starting with pre-op education classes which all patients are invited to attend, on the ward once surgery has taken place and also in the patient education booklet which is given to every patient at their pre-assessment appointment and I apologise if this mobilisation was not continued during your mother’s wait in the discharge lounge. This learning need has now been addressed and the discharge lounge staff are aware of the importance of mobilising patients

You mentioned that your mother needed blood thinning injections every day and as such self-injection are practised with the nursing staff prior to discharge or arranged by the district nursing team. All patients have a discharge letter sent to their GP so I can only assume this was received after you made contact with them about your mothers discharge. You also referred to the physiotherapist you spoke with as being dismissive and unable to offer helpful advice; this attitude is unacceptable and will be raised with their manager.

I thank you for your comments and hope that we have been able to respond accordingly to your concerns. However if you wish to discuss any of your concerns further then we can arrange this with the Ward Sister, Head of Nursing or PALS team

Regards

Sue Mellor

Head of Patient Engagement