To ask to speak to a doctor ?

[3smallpups]

Not in an aggressive way , just does it seem like a reasonable request ?
my brother has been admitted to hospital with what is clearly alcohol related liver disease. He is in no fit state to advocate for himself , rambling and barely conscious . Having been there for several hours today , there was no sign of a doctor on the ward at all. The head nurse was able to answer some questions but only to say that his bloods were all over the place and he’s waiting for a scan.
i have a medical background and it’s pretty obvious what the diagnosis is, without the scan and I know that there’s lab work that can be done to establish prognosis etc, which hasn’t been done .
i know that basically the only chance of a positive outcome is steroids started early , but I feel they aren’t going to do anything till they have done a scan ( likely not to happen over a bank holiday weekend ) and it will all be too late.
if this was my husband , I’d be laying in the corridor until they found me a doctor to speak to , it’s that important . But I sort of feel
as it’s my brother , I don’t have the authority? But I am his next of kin, our parents are dead and he is divorced .
actually just writing this out makes me realise that I need to stand up for him.

Well they did , it’s the only result i achieved today .
maybe he looked at the blood results and observations remotely, but he certainly didn’t physically appear and they put a drip up . I think on a weekend with tight staff pros lot of things happen that aren’t strictly right !

i honestly can’t comprehend why someone with potentially grade 3/4 HE hasn’t had a senior review. I’m sorry you are witnessing this.
Are they treating anything? Is he on antibiotics?
I get staff are busy but 1st presentation decomp’s are not the patients that can wait for concrete plans to be put into place. This is not me criticising you OP, but the staff supposedly taking care of them should also be advocating for him. Where I work if I have concerns I raise them, if I feel I’m not being listened to I go higher.

I worked in hospital comms and most trusts (even if they don’t bother having doctors) will have some comms person monitoring social media over the weekend. Once I ended up phoning the ward making sure someone with celiac who’d been left without appropriate food was fed when her friend named and shamed on Twitter. Trusts hate bad publicity.

I would be escalating NOW

Right now. Emails to PALS and also the ward manager, who is a good person to be in contact with rather than just the nurses. There should be assessment on his mobility and his ability to feed himself / food textures etc. Ask for SALT and OT and physio assessments as he isn't able to achieve basic functions independently. He's declining and the delays are a barrier to him receiving necessary treatment. Start looking up nice guidelines. You can't leave this any longer

This isn't a good scenario, and it is clearly necessary to advocate for your brother.

As a life long people pleaser who would like to make things happen with polite dialogue, I understand your hesitance. But if doctors aren't around, and you aren't meeting them on ward rounds, you need to be taking another approach

I guess a remote review is better than no review but it's still not enough, hopefully the nurses are closely monitoring him and he gets a senior review. I've seen so many similar instances, it's a lousy situation and it's the patients who suffer and the nurses and juniors who get the stress and frustration trying their best for their patients.

Ask if the hospital have ‘Clinical Site Managers’. Ours do. These are senior nurses that troubleshot. They work across the whole hospital and step in when there’s problems.

We’ve used them when ward staff aren’t qualified to give certain iv medication or no one there to put a cannula in. They have a massive amount of authority and really kick ass.

Ours have their own office and contact details, and you can go direct (don’t need ward staff to refer you).

They are the only team available 24/7. Especially, as you realise hospitals practically close down weekends and more so, bank holidays.

I really wish you luck, it’s awful feeling so powerless watching a loved one decline.

Judging by the lack of care and support this poor guy is NOT in the best place

What hospital is this please

Just so I know to avoid it

She'll need his permission to put a complaint in and he's not got capacity to do that at present

The NHS is a joke and everyone who works for them are lazy and pointless in my opinion

Anyone can put in a concern or a complaint, not all staff are lazy and pointless but guess you've never used the nhs and are just looking for a reaction to your pointless post.

Rubbish. On both counts.

It's just click bait, don't rise to it

OP, I hope as this is Tuesday that you are getting some joy . I’m a hospital consultant and would say that your brother is getting apalling care. If you don’t get any joy from speaking to the ward manager to arrange a meeting with the consultant, physically go to the PALS office and say that you are invoking Martha’s rule.

This, the hospital with have a dedicated room/office for PALS. Go there!