"Brilliant surgery lousy aftercare"

I received brilliant service from the day unit at Andover. It has a relaxed positive environment with friendly professional staff. After my operation, removal of a basal cell carcinoma I was told to go home and ring my surgery Stokewood at Fair Oak to arrange a visit from a nurse to fit a compression bandage. My surgery told me their nurses do not do home visits and that I would have to ring the District Nurses, telephone number provided. The district nurse informed me that as I had not been referred by the operating doctor they could not come out to see me and I had to ring Andover. I rang Andover and did not receive a reply, so rang Dermatology to receive the answerphone message, I left my message, I received a phone call from Dermatology apologising for the situation. The nurse would ring the doctor and get back to me which they did in the late afternoon. In the mean time I had rung the surgery to ask if I managed to get to the surgery could they treat me, they said they did not have a nurse qualified to put on a compression bandage. I eventually rang our local pharmacist who suggested flying socks. The nurse from Dermatology rang to again apologise and tell me that they had arranged an appointment at the wound care clinic on Tuesday. I feel that the positive experience in the morning was overshadowed by having to spend all afternoon trying to arrange a compression bandage.