to complain to GP surgery? If not, what has gone wrong here?

[A580Hojas]

My mother was discharged from hospital to a care home 3.5 weeks ago. She was in care for 3 weeks repsite care, and has now gone home.

Her discharge letter prescribed 9 different medications, with the words "GP to follow up" on all the prescriptions on the letter.

But the GP did not follow up. Nor did the care home who had a copy of the letter.

All this came to light after she had been in the care home for 9 days.

My brother got hold of the pharmacist at the GP surgery and asked why my Mum had been left for 9 days without prescribed medications. He said "I don't know" but did arrange for them to be dispensed and dispatched to her within a couple of hours.

Does this sound bad to you? What is the usual procedure in these circumstances, does anyone know before I start a complaint?

But was she given no meds on discharge to care home? And the care home didn't query why she had zero meds?

I asked the question as, as a lay person, I have no idea of the usual procedures.

I think this is part of the problem OP. It's such an everyday thing for all the professionals that they don't realise it's all new to us and no one tells you what should happen/what you need to do.

Plus everything seems to take so long. DH's meds were all controlled and GP's office would complain I was asking too early, but if I didn't by the time they'd had to be double checked at the surgery, then ordered and double checked by the pharmacy, I was always down to the wire, which is really, really stressful when getting decent pain relief is the only thing you can do for a man dying in agony.

Who is this? Who is passing the blame to the GP?

Presumably you are, OP, as your thread title is about complaining to them.

She may have moved GPs. Most care homes (the good ones anyway) have a single GP looking after the home, so unless the home happened to be looked after her old GP, she has probably moved practices. Hospital should have given her 2w meds on discharge.

(single GP practice I mean, not just one dr!)

A GP wouldn't prescribe medication if it hasnt been requested.

Your mum should have had enough for at least a week. And then when it was running out the home should have requested more.

GP to follow up just mean GP to review in a few weeks/ months to make sure there aren't any issues with the new medication.

@Fulmine

Who is this? Who is passing the blame to the GP?

Presumably you are, OP, as your thread title is about complaining to them.

No. I was quoting another poster on the thread.

It is absolutely the care home and hospital’s fault. The policy for how much to supply on discharge varies trust to trust but where I work we need to supply at least 2 weeks for interim placements and 4 weeks for new care homes to allow them to set up a repeat script with the GP. It isn’t the GPS fault and the care home should have asked the hospital for the drugs, it is appalling they did nothing for 9 days and they are absolutely at fault here. As well as the hospital for not discharging your mum with the required medications.

This is not the GPs fault. Your Mum should have been discharged with 1-2 week's supply of any new meds started by the hospital or any of her regular meds that she required. If she wasn't that is hospital's error. If this wasn't noticed and followed-up this is Care Home's error.
'GP to follow-up' is a bit of a crappy thing to write on a discharge summary as it's so vague (for all concerned) but doesn't mean GP is responsible for prescribing and supplying meds.
It can be a standard phrase which simply means there is no planned hospital follow-up so if patient does need anything they are to go to their GP, or it could mean something more specific.