"What we liked? NOTHING. At the ..."

What I liked

What we liked? NOTHING.

At the start of the new year my 76 year old mother was admitted as an urgent case by her GP. She was sent to the Medical Assessment Unit arriving at 8pm, placed in bay 13 where, despite numerous reminders from myself and my father, she remained for 2.5 hours unseen and unassessed. I dread to think what happens to elderly patients who are placed in this unit without a relative to assist/care for them. After numerous tests and long waiting periods my mother was admitted to the Will Adams Ward at 4am.

The Will Adams ward is too large and overseen by approx 4 consultants, therefore, the patients have a variety of illnesses at various levels of seriousness, a mix of male and female. My mother was totally incapacitated and had to rely on the 'call' button. However, these alarms were not responded to immediately, in fact the length of time would often exceed 10 minutes.

A week later as my mother improved she was transferred to Milton Ward, but a communication failure between the wards (stating that she was male not female) created a situation where there wasn't a bed available in the female section so she had to spend the night in the 'day' room with a male patient.

The following morning she was moved to a side room, but unfortunately it was a simple case of "out of sight, out of mind" and a few days later my mother had once again deteriorated. Due to the constant lack of care, attention and compassion meant that being in hospital was destroying her.

Myself and my father made the decision to discharge her and within 24 hours of being at home and being cared by her husband (aged 81) and her family she made a radical improvement.

What could be improved

Remove the Medical Assessment Unit - it serves no purpose whatsoever.

Spend money on employing more nurses.

Train the staff the art of COMPASSION.