"Lack of genuine care within the NHS"

As a disabled man I have tried so hard to find somebody within the NHS system who I can actually speak to with the concerns which I have raised regarding both regarding my health care and with my personal wellbeing. Nobody at all wants to know, least of all the hospital which is supposedly providing my treatment as a renal patient in Bristol or their in house PALS service who purports to 'liaise' with other services when such concerns are raised.

For twelve years I have endured some of the most horrendous attacks on myself and my home. As I am sure you will appreciate, the matter is both too complicated and personal to write fully here, but to my mind, when a patient is known to be at such risk, and they also ask for help knowing that they are in a prolonged and dangerous situation, and then that help is then flatly denied to them by the PALS service that is supposedly considerate for their healthcare and wellbeing, how much worse can a hospital actually become?

For my part I do have very serious reservations about continuing any treatment now at Southmead because I have experienced how poorly patient concerns are received and certainly how mis-managed the PALS department actually is when any form of liaising is required.

Even in the past when concerns were previously raised neither my partner or myself ever got the impression that anything other than false platitudes were ever spoken at the meetings we attended, and the overall conclusion that we came to was that the hospital response was not one of how can we improve the overall patient experience using the services which we have at our disposal, but how can we, ourselves, cover up for one another within our own particular departments and for our own failure and lack of care.

Perhaps a staff turnaround from other departments or change of PALS management would be of benefit to all patients in order to raise the standard of treatment which individuals like myself are receiving, and it certainly wouldn't be detrimental to see any such fresh ideas or improvements made in any hospital to avoid staff complacency.

But sadly in my opinion, a more deeply rooted and endemic culture exists, which is the impression given that despite the current guidelines, little appraisal of performance from outside organizations will have any impact at all on improving patient care and not always the excuses of lack of funding or equipment, which really is now putting patient welfare at risk.