"Shocking level of care, skills and communication!"

I was admitted to ward 4 of the Bradford Royal Infirmary by my GP for an obvious DVT and Pulmonary Embolism following a recent leg operation.

I arrived on the Monday early evening and had blood tests followed by further blood tests, injected with Fragmin and sent home and asked to return the next morning for a CT Scan. The standard of care at this point seemed fine and blood was taken without any issues.

On the Tuesday morning I arrived at around 0830hrs and took a bed space as sitting was very painful. I was lucky I took a lot of reading material with me as the wait was lengthy. I was seen by a Doctor on the ward who eventually agreed i needed to go for a CT Scan but first a Ultrasound scan on my leg.

On this day I experienced the serious lack of skills available from the nursing staff who declined to insert the cannula and the Doctor who attempted three times to insert a cannula very badly each time causing a lot of unnecessary discomfort and also failed to apply the cannula dressing. Requests for the Ultrasound were not processed and i was left ignored for some considerable time. Eventually i was asked to make my own way across the hospital for the Ultrasound scan.

Following my return i was expecting to be sent for a CT Scan in the afternoon, it seems that this was forgotten and the Scan was not booked and they then decided to send me for a chest X-Ray instead. Again, i was sent off to find my own way to the X-Ray department. Following this was another lengthy wait for results which were not communicated back to me.

Late in the afternoon i was approached twice asking me if i was newly admitted and could i take your "obs" (observations). At no point since arriving that day were my obs taken or tagged as a patient. I told them it was a bit late for that since i was going home again. A box of Fragmin syringes and boxes of Warfarin were thrust into my hands and i was sent home and asked to inject them myself without instruction of how or where or asked to perform my first injection in front of them. I asked if they were going to take out the cannula, they were going to send me home with it still inserted until they found out i could not get a CT Scan until Thursday afternoon!

I went home and had to look up on the internet the instructions for correctly administering Fragmin injects finding injection sites and method etc. I had to find my own sterile wipes and cotton pads as these were not supplied.

Four days after been admitted i finally had the CT Scan on Thursday and after a very lengthy wait again i was finally told a Pulmonary Embolus with several blood clots on both lungs.