"Bad advice, neglect of the elderly, rude staff"

Anything else?

My elderly father was on steroids for advanced cancer. He was told to stop taking the steroids as they may have been causing his legs to swell up. Anyone in the medical industry should know that stopping steroids cold turkey is extremely dangerous if you have been on them for months which my dad had been. We weren't told to slowly lower the dose (over months) at all just to stop them. As a result of following this advice two days later my dad felt like he was having a heart attack. So by ambulance was taken to LRI and thankfully they did promptly put him back on the steroids. He spent a week and a half in the hospital, they messed us about everyday saying he was coming out the next day then they changed their minds. He developed an awful bedsore. He came out so much worse not even able to walk or barely even to stand with the added bedsore now to take care of. When taken for a scan we made sure to tell the doctors to give him painkillers as he had tumours all up his spine and lying flat with his head down was excruciating for him. Later on when we saw him he told us they hadn't given him anything and he'd been in agony the whole time. It is very evident from our experience and from other comments that the staff at LRI are completely unable to care for their elderly patients. My dad was still very "with it" but wasn't one to complain so as such he got neglected-you shouldn't have to shout to be heard it should be obvious he was in extreme pain a lot of the time and unable to move himself and likely to develop a bedsore. I wouldn't advise anyone to take their elderly family members to this hospital. My dad didn't need to be in there for a week and a half they should have just put him back on the steroids and let him come home the next day where we would have done a damn better job of looking after him. My father died a week and a half after his stay at LRI and the only reason he probably had to go in was due to the advice of that registrar in taking him off the steroids. On a prior occasion when having chemo at LRI a nurse was very rude and ripped the chemo tube out of his hand making it bleed because she couldn't find the vein and got annoyed, she then stormed off. Completely unacceptable behaviour of an elderly gentleman having cancer treatment. I do understand it's a highly stressful environment but there can be no excuse. When at home with his palliative nurse she noticed possible brain tumour symptoms and worried his cancer had spread to the brain (which turned out to be true) she rang the LRI and the person on the other end said not to worry his type of cancer doesn't spread to the brain. If not for visiting his optician a week later who immediately spotted tumour/stroke symptoms and sent him to A&E he may never have gotten treatment for his brain metastases. Unbelievable that the person on the line could just dismiss the symptoms of a possible brain tumour like that. Awful and extremely distressing.