"Hospital Comment"

What I liked

The bedside manor of the staff.

The parts of the hospital that I encountered were clean, which means some people in that building know what they are doing

What could be improved

Televisions on the wards..

Why... for the sake of the patients, visitors/carers and even the sake of the staff because being on one of those wards 24/7 with nothing to do, is enough to drive anyone stir crazy, which can make the patient, impatient, bored and agitated. This then gets taken out not only on the visitors/carers but the staff aswell, (which is unfair on them) this could reflect in back onto the patient from the staff and then the patient could feed this back to visitors/carers and then unwarranted complaints about the staff could be submitted thus wasting valuable resources that apparently the NHS don't have. All for the sake of a TV.

Clearer communication between the hospital and the services in the community....

Why..Because the hospital has no say whatsoever in how the care in the community operates they are two seperate entities, the hospital cannot dictate to the district nurses office how often or when a patient is seen once discharged into their care..However what happens is the hospital contacts the district nurses office states when and where the patient is seen, the office accepts these terms and conditions and the patient is discharged on this undestanding...but when it comes down to acting upon these terms and conditions the district nurses have got too many patients to deal with..and cannot fulfil this obligation

Why..My patient is in her 80's and lives alone....4 days after she was discharged the hospital get in contact with us to ask us what dosage of whaferin she is having. Obviously because they didn't know, ontop of that they discharged her without the card that keeps a record of the patients INR levels, so an emergency blood test had to be done a card had to be sent by taxi about 7 miles to the patients house

The signs that are supposed to direct you around that maize of uncertainty

Anything else?

This is for anyone that takes anyone in to that hospital that is vulnerable, especially an elderly person.

Don't be afraid to ask to look at their records to see what is or what should be going on.

If they get discharged into the care in the community, don't be afraid to double check on whether or not the care in the community can and will fulfil the obligations that have be made by the hospital and do this before they are discharged.

Don't be afraid that you might cause conflict between between different departments, let them fight it out amongst themselves, as long as your relative is getting the care that they need and deserve even if they are old !

Also if you have or know someone that is or has been a victim of these or other short comings then be their voice...Tell their story, make these mistakes stop because the only way this will be addressed is if enough people kick up enough fuss about it....

I'll bet there are people out there that will be thinking "What good is it going to do, why should I bother" and I bet those same people would kick up a fuss if their TV wasn't working properly after being repaired or their mobile phone network was down.....

These people are your loved one and cannot be replaced (not like a TV or phone) they are irreplacable if you have a relative or friend or know someone that has gone through the same or a similar experience the do something about it.