Shaking with rage, can't sleep, NHS treatment of elderly

[Krupkrups]

My Grandma (89) has finally come out of hospital tonight finally after nearly nearly 5 weeks.

There's been nothing wrong she had a fall nothing broken, nothing but they wouldn't let her go home my uncle has lived with her for past 8 months since his divorce and she had a career who comes on a lunchtime. They said because she didn't have anyone at home which is bullshit, then social services got involved who were a shower of shite, then the hospital 'forgot' to discharge her twice despite my parents, uncle and care team being at home twice waiting.

Before going into hospital she could;

Get herself and dressed nicely

Get Downstairs / upstairs

Get herself to toilet and wipe herself - no incontinence pants

Make herself food and drinks (hot drinks, kettle on etc.)

Do crosswords

Move around the house with, slowly and with the help of a stick and frame but she did

Her memory was clearly going and she has slowed down cognitively in conversations but she knew we all were still enjoyed face times from my children, still read the paper.

She's come out and frankly it's like she's come out of a Victorian asylum, I am heartbroken, she looks deranged when she's awake sunken eyes strange rolling eyes, has lost an absolute load of weight - she was always very slender possibly too slender before now she looks like a famine survivor.

She is incoherent most of the time when awake.

Can't get out of bed / apparently is imobile - well yes she is now

Can't feed herself isn't eating when being fed

Is wearing adult nappies which have to be changed and the carers are changing and wiping her mess

Is covered in bed sores

I am weeping and raging I feel like driving to the hospital and punching the nurses in that ward in the face!!!! What have they done to her.

Totally agree with the situation over the weekend. If you arent out Friday you can forget it until Monday. Worse during this weekend whereby if you arent out today you wont be out until next Tuesday. Such a waste.

I rarely use NHS services but do need to go for an appointment next week at the hospital. The dept called me earlier this morning. Didnt leave a message and I was on the phone. I called the number and after 10 mins someone answered' Radiology' - I knew this was the right place so I explained that someone had called me - they then said they were just confirming my appointment.

Thing is they didnt leave a message! That would have prompted me to check I had the right day or time which is always useful on both sides.

JUST WHY DONT THEY THINK WHAT THEY ARE DOING? IF YOU ARE GOING TO CONFIRM APPOINTMENTS LEAVE A MESSAGE OR A TEXT.

As someone said further upthread. Its for their convienence - not yours!

What is it about setting up these giant NHS hubs? Our local hospital is being slowly closed down. Everyone needs to go to this giant hub. Problem is there isnt enough parking. They tell you to use local buses, Park and Ride etc and to leave at least 1 hour to find a parking space. Driving takes me 45 mins. Public transport is non existent until I get to a bigger town which I will have to drive to.

Madness. Have X Ray depts more locally, ditto breast screening. I also needed to go to the giant hub for a recent mammogram. It didnt take me 1 hour to find a parking space because my husband took a few hours off work to take me.

WHAT A BLOODY WASTE!

I bet some people dont then bother to go.

@MichaelandKirk we have specialist hubs in different towns. Which, funnily enough, are not well connected to each other by public transport.

If you are elderly with complex health problems you may find yourself transported between them to be seen in the appropriate specialist department. Which is likely to be distressing and confusing.

There are a lot of mistakes that the NHS makes for itself and that have nothing to do with a lack of money.

Three examples, my MIL had a pre-op check and was asked about blood thinners. The person doing this check was a nurse practitioner who specialised on this area, he showed MIL (and DH, who was with her) a long list of different medication, all with long and similar but slightly different names, and asked her 'Are you taking any of these drugs?' The blood thinning drug she was taking was not on that list, there omission, so she said No.

If instead, the nurse had asked to look at her prescription, he would have recognised the name of this drug and could have advised her that she needed to stop taking it and when. This resulted in the operation, to be performed by a surgeon who is the only one in the country who does this procedure, being cancelled as MIL was being wheeled into theatre. The slot was wasted, the IC bed was wasted, the surgeon's time was wasted, and our time was wasted.

When we raised this with the department all they said was that the nurse was a specialist and indeed taught this speciality to students. This was an imperfect system, that carries a much higher risk of mistakes than a quicker easier method of the expert looking at the patient's prescription, yet they refused to take on board any comments from us.

When MIL was in hospital recovering from her operation we had a phone call to say that she was running riot and they needed to put in place a Deprivation of Liberty Order to sedate and treat her. DH had repeatedly told the medical staff that on no account should they stop giving her the anti-psychotic meds she was on to control her Alzheimer's, and they ignored him.

After the operation we found a community nurse wandering around the village looking for MIL, he had come to check the post op wound. Firstly, he hadn't been informed that MIL was back in hospital (she had been discharged home much too early and had had a fall within an hour) and secondly, his notes told him that the wound was in her thigh (which is usual for a new heart valve) and he then wouldn't believe DH when he told him that the wound was in her side, as it was a much rarer procedure, although it was irrelevant by then of course.

Our experience of dealing with MIL was just a long list of these ridiculous failures in communication and delays within the NHS.

Yes, they were good people, some very, very good, but ground down I sensed by a sclerotic failing system, which no one is allowed to criticise or comment on in any meaningful way.

You can discuss the myriad problems the NHS faces without implying that everyone who works for it is a knuckle dragging Luddite. Those of us who work there get frustrated by the systems and policies put in place too.

I’ve had the tut, tutting over the phone too. I have quarterly appts at a hospital. You’re just emailed an appt time, you don’t have any say it when it’s booked. I had an appt time messaged to me….realised it would clash with another commitment so called to let them know…..this was at least 5 weeks notice. Lady I spoke to seemed to be huffy and annoyed (these appts are in demand so shouldn’t be a problem to fill without issue) asked me if I couldn’t attend due to a holiday, or what the reason was? By this time I was getting a bit peed off with the condescending attitude. Why does it matter to them why I can’t attend, we all have lives & jobs etc…seemed to be a real problem for them, jeez!

Yes, there is zero cognizance that members of the public (the scummy patients) may have obligations and pressures on their time and that their time is every bit as important as that of Dr's and nurses.

I have an annual appointment with my rheumatologist. Every appointment notes the cost of a missed appointment and is very heavy handed in relation to turning up on time.

Two consecutive appointments ran 90 minutes late. Only the consultant apologised. In relation to the second the little board when I arrived, said 30 minute delay, 20 minutes later it was 60 minute delay. After another 20 minutes it turned into 90 minutes. I had to leave having factored in only a 60 minute delay. When I noted the contradictory nature of xommunication and the unacceptability, I got the eye roll.

NHS staff too readily forget that the NHS is only free at the point of delivery. If they rendered a bill relating to a o0 minute delay in the absence of an apology, I would not pay it. Minds would be crystallised.

If you re ill, you'll go, if you re not, stop wasting their time... another commitment?? FFS!

This entitled attitude is exactly why the NHS is crumbling.... you want that sort of service? go private.

Do you really think they have the time and resources to offer bespoke appointments to millions of patients each year?

134m outpatient appointments each year... but you want tailor made ones just for you....

My FIL attends eye infirmary for injections every 6 weeks, he has a rough idea of the time period, he cannot drive, we fit in around the appointment time offered, even if it isn't ideal

People can have other commitments! We were parties in a civil court case last year, which we didn’t start. Nevertheless, it was very important to us. There were 4 hearings. At a hearing, the date for the next one was set - if a party couldn’t make it, they could say so. However, the NHS can send out letters, giving 48 hours notice of an appointment. We couldn’t ask the court to move the hearing, with just 48 hours notice!

Ditto - what do you do, if you take three members of your family to appointments, and there are two appointments, within a few hours at two different hospitals? Everyone knows clinics can run several hours late!

We used to take DD to a top hospital in London. The consultant told us, when he next wanted to see DD. We went out and told the receptionist, who give us a choice of appointments, closest to the date. It was much better, for us to be able to say - we struggle to get her here before 10 am, when the drugs have kicked in. (Otherwise, we could be going to A & E at a nearby hospital, which did happen).

There might be less appointments wasted, if the NHS accepted the right to choose. There is a cost to patients in getting to appointments and it’s not always just about money.

The actual commitment I had was a dentist appt which are like rocking horse shit!!!! Id had to wait weeks for this appt, god knows when I’d get another. So reel your f’ing neck in. I attend regular hospital appts for follow up and review only, and have always attended when scheduled, but for this one important occasion. I have had several appts cancelled by them, sometimes with only a few days notice…..but I don’t feel the need to go into pompous git mode and talk to people like they’re children. A lot of others on here seem to have similar issues. I have a lot of respect for what the NHS workers have to do, of course, but sometimes it seems there is definitely an attitude of when they shout……you have to ask how high
No I don’t expect them to jump to others whims, but I was highlighting the rudeness and holier than thou attitude that I dare to ask for another time booking………

I had this a couple of years ago when my breast screening was due. I live close to a county boundary. We have a large Tesco’s a couple of miles away where they often park the screening van at various times of the year. My appt came through, but no….common sense fails…..I was scheduled for my screening at a large central county hospital which meant a 70 mile round trip, even though at that time a mobile screen van was sitting a couple of miles away???.
You couldn’t make it up…..as stated, no wonder some people just don’t bother.

I really think the entitled attitude is what will take the NHS from us. It's a real tragedy. This lady is 89 and frail and frail people become unwell and confused surprisingly quickly.

Richard Haslem writes about what the role of the NHS is. At present, it fails if anyone dies. Which is a bit impossible. Also, it is providing social care, transport, assessments at home. People can't visit, can't help take their loved ones home so it's all expected from this stretched service.

What's the solution? Private care? If you think they will be providing a better level of service, remember that they employ the same people, probably just less of them. Remember some caring services run at a financial loss. Difficult to make the business plan work here

Yes, I agree that often people expect the NHS to “do it all”, when a lot of the real gaps exist within social care, local support systems etc, and the NHS are then expected to plug these up. It’s not unusual for frail people to arrive at our door on Christmas Eve etc so the family can have a break from caring. Of course it is hard to care for family members, but the NHS often takes the flak when it is overstretched due to the failures in other systems.
I work in a specialist role where I spend a lot of time organising shopping, transport etc for frail people - I love my job and love working with frail elderly people, but I do sometimes feel that my experience and training could be better deployed in helping them medically, if only there was the services in the community to help with stuff like that.

What an overheated response. You've put a lot of words in pp's mouth here that she didn't actually say. She hasn't asked for anything 'bespoke' or 'tailor made'. And how do you know the other commitment isn't also related to her health? Personally I've had to juggle clashing appointments on more than one occasion due to various chronic health issues, though those are perhaps not something you're familiar with, judging by 'If you re ill, you'll go, if you re not, stop wasting their time'. That sort of oversimplified binary doesn't work for all of us where our health is concerned.

@Alexandra2001

If you re ill, you'll go, if you re not, stop wasting their time... another commitment?? FFS! This entitled attitude is exactly why the NHS is crumbling.... you want that sort of service? go private.

The opposite actually. It's the entitled attitude of NHS staff that everyone else should drop everything at their convenience which is killing the NHS.

OH has this a lot because of his cancer. The NHS is incapable of organising appointments that don't clash, even within the same department. So when he gets, say a consultant appointment that clashes with an infusion, he gets the "attitude" from NHS staff when trying to re-arrange one or the other. Likewise when he tries to make a blood test appointment which has to be exactly the right number of days before his monthly chemo starts - it's "his" fault he's being awkward even though he tells them why it has to be a specific date. Likewise making appointments to pick up his chemo drugs every month - again, it's a sodding battle with some stuck up administrator to actually get an appointment on the right day (x number of days after the blood test and at least a day before his monthly drug cycle starts). They bugger it up every sodding month and make out it's OH's fault for being so "fussy", yet, it's the oncologist consultant himself so wants things done on the right days!

If a patient wants a different appointment time to one that has been dictated to them without consultation, most will have good reasons, such as appointments elsewhere for themselves or someone they care for, work commitments, caring commitments, etc.

Far too many NHS staff think everyone else should bow and courtsy to them for being granted treatment or a consultation. The "God complex" previously held only by senior consultants has really permeated right down to the admin levels.

Of course, that' if you can actually speak to someone at all as we've had appointment letters sent with the wrong phone number on the letterhead (for a different dept) or the out of order phone numbers, so you've got to spend ages trying to go through different people to try to find the person you actually need to speak to, and even then, sometimes it goes to answerphone and they can't be arsed to get back to you!

@Badbadbunny again with the sweeping statements about NHS staff- it’s a massive, massive organisation. Every other person who goes through these departments has the same problems, the same time restraints.
Maybe there is an attitudinal problem in the trust or department you access, but I work in an oncology department, and the people I work with knock their pans in to make these treatments work for their patients, often staying hours late after their shift ends. They are often at the sharp end of trying to manage these scheduling conflicts and bear it with grace and a smile.
I’m sorry that you and your husband have had a bad experience, and I hope his treatment goes well from now on, but about 2 million people work for the NHS, they can’t all be stuck up wankers.

The NHS appointment system is farcically bad. It is in no way the fault of front line staff, but I'm baffled that any of them would defend it.

Incidentally I recently had my bowel testing kit sent to me, but they sent me a letter about a week before to say that they were sending it. Why? Why not just send the kit?

I just googled and they send out 6.9 million of these kits a year, and presumably also send out the same number of totally pointless warning letters as well. They could save around £6 million right there. I know this is a drop in the ocean in terms of nhs spending but it's still pointless waste that taxpayers are perfectly entitled to challenge.

TBH if you speak them as you've replied to me, then its little wonder you get back attitude..... "reel your fucking neck in....." or i'll glass mate!!!

I received one a few months ago, was informed both by letter and email, in my case and i guess there may be some differences between trusts... the prior communications were to explain what the test was for, that it was a national screening program & that i wasn't being singled out.

I suspect there are some people who might be very alarmed at receiving a Cancer test kit out of the blue?

On appointments, like i said earlier, find them to be absolutely fine nor have i ever had an appoint over run by hours, the longest was a 2 wait in a fracture clinic in the80s.

I tend not to change them, its easier & better to rearrange other commitments...court hearings aside.

People just seem to love to knock the NHS, its almost like a national pastime on MN

That's a good point. There have been periods of time in my life where I have been the only reasonably able-bodied member of my immediate family, trying to juggle organising healthcare appointments for my late parents, my late husband and myself whilst still working full time. Inevitably, my own healthcare needs had to be set aside (in spite of the "affix own gas mask first" mantra).

The one time that I did have a very sympathetic consultant who allowed me to work around my family commitments was when I needed an operation on both feet. By then, my father had died so I was my mother's sole carer - though she did have carers coming in to see her.

The consultant was happy to wait for me to have confirmation of respite before setting the date for my operation.

Another time, however, it didn't work out as well. I was caring for both my mother and my husband at home and had the date of my shoulder operation set. As before, I'd liaised with the local social work department to organise respite for Mum. I had arranged for Mum to have respite while I would continue to look after DH at home and had confirmed the day op date with the consultant.

At the very last minute, I was told that Mum's respite was cancelled because an elderly patient being discharged from hospital required respite care and the care home had no additional places. There were no places available anywhere in the county. I had to ask the care company to reinstate Mum's care package for what should have been my recovery period. Basically, I just hoped for the best. (I dealt with all of my Mum's evening and night time care needs.)

I agree and there are so many experts on here about it. Equally the number of people who have never nursed in their lives but think they know all about it because it’s essentially just ‘woman’s work’.
Not saying there aren’t issues but it also treats millions everyday successfully. The fact that there are notices all over our hospital warning patients and visitors not to direct verbal and physical abuse at staff says it all..

Not really. Medical treatment can be futile in many cases. Risks outweigh benefits.

Yes, it’s completely reasonable to discuss whether it is the right thing to do to to make a very frail perso endure painful, invasive treatment that is more than likely to be futile, and rob them of the chance to spend their last days/ weeks in comfort, and it’s a shame when it ends up in these adversarial conversations - ultimately we’re all (hopefully) aiming for the best outcome for the patient.

Any news on your Grandma @Krupkrups has she been seen by GP?

what is the point of this post ….gives absolutely no perspective to the conversation. My response was in equal anger to the useless and argumentative post earlier.
i don’t really care for your attitude