When the NHS Fails

My wife was in hospital last week for a major repair operation on her sinus.  Somehow a leak of Cerebral Spine Fluid had appeared through the nose.  There are risks with this, of infection including meningititis and encephalitis to name two, if left untreated.  Therefore, the need for corrective surgery was urgent. 

The NHS Waiting list to see ENT was at least two months, with a possible wait of 3 months for surgery.  So we went private for the initial consultant appointments and tests and scans necessary to gain a diagnosis.  These cost around £2k.   Our consultant than transferred us to the NHS and luckily, due to a cancellation, we got an admission for surgery within 3 weeks.  So far, so good.

We appeared at the hospital at 0700 hrs on Friday morning, to find works going on, had diverted everything around different corridors and ended up walking around the whole site, before finding where she was to be admitted.

Admission went well and we handed in the Scans and Xrays we had brought with us (expensive but our property) and she went down to theatre.  The arrangement being that I should go home, and they would ring me when she came out of theatre to tell me which ward she was to be admitted to.  As surgery would be around 2 to 3 hours, that was a reasonable suggestion - but as we live some distance from the Hospital it made sense to wait and to see.

4 hours later, with no call, I was a little worried - but going back to admissions was useless, as they could not give me any information.   I was told to ring into the recovery suite.  I did so, and was told - we don't know who you are talking about?  By then, I was getting a bit worried, but insisted that they had someone there, belonging to me and I wanted to know what was going on.

Perhaps I am being unkind, but I was put onto a succession of individuals whose first language was obviously not English - and they had difficulty understanding me, and the reverse, I could not understand them.   Eventually, after 15 minutes on the phone, I was given a Ward name that she had been admitted to - and was able to go there.  It was a different Ward from the one she had been admitted to.

Eventually, finding my way there, I was able to visit her.  She was barely awake, but was concerned about her property and belongings, which had been left on the admission ward, where were they?.   After questioning some very harassed looking nursing staff, I was told that it had been found and was on its way to the ward.   It arrived a few minutes later.

I left to go home to feed our animals, with an assurance that she was to be discharged in the morning and to come back then.

Next morning, I arrived at the ward at 0830 (within the visiting hours displayed at the hospital and on their website) to be turned away from the ward by a nurse who told me that visiting hours were from 1500 hrs and that she dared not let me in as some of the managers were about and she might get into trouble.   She told me to ring hospital reception and they would let me know when my wife was to be discharged - Go home and wait!

I was than left without any choice but to wait around - I rang reception to be greeted by an ansafone asking me to speak the extension or person or Ward that I wished to speak to?  asking for the ward,  it worked and it rang and seemed to switch around extensions on the ward, but was not answered.

I rang successively 7 times over the next two hours, with the same outcomes.    Eventually my wife managed to ring me on my mobile and left a message for me to collect her at 1pm.  She had known this from first thing - but had not been able to get the message to me, and the nurse obviously, did not know this or chose not to tell me?

Eventually at 1pm I arrived back at the ward and was let in to collect my wife.  We inquired about our Xrays etc, to be told that no one knew where they were, and we would have to ring in on Monday to try to trace them.  They then discovered that they had forgotten to send her prescription for medication down to Pharmacy, and said that she would have to wait another 2 or 3 hours before it could be got for her.   At this stage, my wife was so fed up, we decided to leave without the medication and to stop at a Chemist to pick up some pain killers, which was what was needed.

On Monday, we rang as advised and got the runaround from the Ward, Reception, ENT department, no one of whom could find or locate the xrays - promises of calls being returned have not been kept and currently, we are considering billing the NHS for the costs of the missing xrays.

A couple of days later, we got a call from the hospital saying that my wife needed to be re-admitted for further treatment on 30th April 2010.  So we can now look forward to going through the whole messy scenario once again.  We had not been told anything about this at any appointments or during her stay in hospital - we expected an outpatients followup in 2 weeks, nothing more.

So where does the NHS fail - basically, their ability to communicate and to pass on information to patients and to  carers.  The hospital website has a glossy, professional feel with lots of information, a patients charter and one for carers (me), but it appears to be all spin.  The fact is that it has a face for the statistics and inspectors and another for those patients who fall into its system.

I am not critical of the staff, who to an individual were caring and doing their best, albeit, hard pressed, understaffed and in some cases, working well past break times or finish times due to the demands on them.  It is the system in place to support them in doing their jobs - when you go into the hospital, you see dozens of non-clinical staff, with badges, walking to and fro, talking, laughing, looking busy, but clinical staff appear to always be looking tired, overwrought and perhaps fedup. 

The NHS is not short of money, millions are being spent at the hospital to renew its infrastructure and it has first class facilities - it is the ethos of lack of care and lack of interest in patient care, which appears to pervade the structure and organisation which is the issue for me. This inevitably cascades down through staff and makes the whole thing an ordeal, which is bad enough when you are dealing with serious health issues for a loved one.   When you ring in, seeking information, you expect to talk to a person not a machine and that there will be two way communication - this appears to be a major problem for them.

We are now in the situation of being missing some £2k worth of private xrays, and having to look forward to a repeat of last week's fiasco, next week.   I am praying for a better outcome this time.