Hi
Im after some advice regarding an experience with the NHS . This isn’t because we want money , but feel that things have happened as a result of maybe failings but I’m unsure as it’s a situation I’ve never been in so really just after some advice .
My husband had an accident - he had broken bones but the most significant are his shoulder and hip , both broken . He was in hospital and had surgery on his hip . Some of the things I detail here may not be necessarily important in the story but it’s also me getting things off my chest as it’s been an awful time.
Before surgery we were told that a general anaesthetic was risky due to issues with his lungs and ribs. He was moved on to a ward late on the evening after being in hospital for 24 hours and by this point he was having a lot of pain relief and quite ‘out of it’ - concious , but not making a lot of sense . When I left the hospital on the evening I was told doctors would be round at 9ish so he probably wouldn’t be having surgery before visiting started at 11am . I said I wanted to be there as he was very scared, I was told I couldn’t go on the ward before 11 but it probably wouldn’t be surgery before then . The next day at 910 I got a frantic call from him saying that he was going to surgery right then . I raced to the hospital , when I got there I was told it was delayed and they didn’t know when it was delayed until but I couldn’t go in to him until 11. I said I assumed I would have to be there for consent etc but was told no, he’s able to do that himself - I was a bit unsure as he was really affected by the pain relief but still wasn’t allowed in. I went in at 11 and he was about to be taken down, I saw him just as he was being wheeled down and he told me he was having surgery on his shoulder as well as his hip , having a general anaesthetic and would be 6 hours. No nurse would tell me anything , I was scared as he had signed consent and I didn’t know if he had signed anything saying it was riskier etc . He had no way of contacting me when he woke up so I asked the nurses if they could call me when he woke so I could go home ( I have children ) they point blank refused , quite rudely , and said I would have to just keep coming up to the ward to check . I did , i stayed at the hospital the whole time and kept going up to check - it was made clear to me that I was being annoying. After 5 hours I came up and was told he was out but in intensive care . Long story short he was in intensive care for 2 days with pneumonia but I didn’t know he had pneumonia ( was told oxygen levels were too low ) until his discharge from hospital 10 days later . Apparently they told him but he has no recollection. Just to add I know he’s an adult but I just thought I should have been around for these conversations as his wife and next of kin- for context he later told me he vaguely remembers signing consent and remembers panicking on the way to surgery as he was convinced the doctors were going to take all of his organs to sell - that shows his state of mind at the time .
Anyway, after surgery on a hip they usually get patients to begin being mobile on crutches asap but as his upper body was broken both sides this wasn’t possible. They discharged him after 10 days . I repeatedly tried to get someone to talk to me about his care at home - I told nurses he had no bed downstairs , no bathroom , and would be sleeping on a sofa and that we had a large step into our house and I was scared how he would manage. He can’t go upstairs , he can’t move around except very slowly moving from bed to chair . The physio came to see him twice but always outside of visiting , so I wasn’t there . He told them about the step , the bed situation etc . They told him he could HOP up the step into the house with one crutch ( his shoulder was broken and in a sling , the same side as his broken hip , all his ribs the other side are broken ) and HOP down it. I reiterated the danger of the step , nurses told me he needed step training this didn’t happen . No one spoke to me about the situation at home , no risk assessment was done. They ordered a commode for home and a stool that was it. They told him hopping was fine and going out in the car , wheelchair etc with me would be good for his mental health . They knew he was coming into the house with just me and had to go up and down that step each time we went out , we had hospital appointments etc . The nurse repeated to me what physio had said to him but despite attempts I could not so get to speak to anyone regarding this. They did not offer transport home . Also whilst all this was going on he was really dazed on morphine , he thought he was on a cruise ship , he thought animals were on the ward with him , he was falling asleep for seconds every few mins . They only stopped morphine on the day of discharge so all of this info he had from physio was when he was like this . He came home , got in ok with help from a friend too . The next day I had to go out and was scared of leaving him alone . As the physio had said he was capable of going in and out we decided to take him with me as advised was ok and worried about leaving him home but when it came to the step even after following advice , he fell. Straight on to his hip and shoulder and had to call an ambulance to go back in .
( A side note , during his second hospital stay he was taken for a scan . Someone ‘forgot’ to put his bed in transport mode so when he got down to the scan his bed was deflating , he was in agony he said as they moved him and then they put him back on to the deflated bed. When he came back to the ward , he was completely sunken into the bed , the nurse was shocked and said all she could do was wait for it to inflate again . She took me to one side and apologised and said he would be in a lot of pain now as he was effectively just lay on metal . They put him back on the bed when it was deflated )
He was back in for another 10 days . He damaged all the pins in his hip. His hip is actively deteriorating. The hospital did not know how to go forward so transferred his care to a surgical reconstruction team at another hospital but before they saw him they discharged him again . The doctor who first saw him on readmission said he can’t go home until they know it’s safe as this can’t happen again . But it was the same situation - physio seeing him when I’m not there , knowing he still had the step , they said they would order him a ramp but wouldn’t be here when he came home . They knew he would have to do the same thing to get in that had caused a fall, this time with more damage than before . I couldn’t get anywhere with talking to them . He suggested to them that he have the wheelchair in the house on the step so he can sit in it and they said that would be ok . HE SUGGESTED THAT . No advice from them other than the ramp but knowing that ramp wasn’t here or they said to get someone to put an extra step in . I was petrified . I feel like we were just left . I have a friend who is an OT who told me all the risk assessments they should do - checking the height of our sofa , checking he could safely get in and move around , showing us how to get in and out of the car . None if this was done . They sent him home knowing he was getting into the house the same unsafe way , that 2 days later he had to get out again for an appointment.
Luckily , using the chair worked and he can now get safely in and out . As we were leaving hospital a nurse said “ has anyone told you about your shoulder “ …. Turns out he had also damaged his shoulder and would probably need more surgery . No doctor told us that .
Fast forward to the appointment at the other hospital - we found out that his hip had deteriorated even more since the fall - the fall is the cause of all I’m about to say . They can’t repair it . They have 2 options , one is to let it heal . If they let it heal ( if it stops deteriorating ) his one leg will be significantly shorter than the other and leave him with lifelong mobility issues ( permanent limp , permanently walking with sticks ,a special built up shoe ) . There will be no chance of him returning to his career , a career he has built up and progressed in that is quite physical , the doctor said he will not be able to do that . Let alone the emotional effects . He will still have to have a replacement in 15 years anyway but he’s 35 so that’s the prime of his life with a disability and unable to work until he’s 50 . If they do the replacement he would have none of those issues and be up about about within 6 weeks .
He broke down in the doctors room and said can they just do the replacement as he can’t live like that , we have children , he won’t be able to play with them , he won’t be able to work - in an emotionally charged moment he said “ I’ll kill myself if I have to live like that “ and the doctor said “ that’s not justification to do a replacement “ . Basically unless it continues to deteriorate they won’t do it. We’re back in a few weeks to see how it’s going .
At the end of the appointment the doctor was about to let us go and my husband said “ what about my shoulder , the nurse said it needs surgery ? “ it was like it was the first the doctor heard of it. He looked at the scans and said he needed to get a specialist in . In a nutshell the specialist then told him that he needs surgery asap within the next week or so , with surgery he will have 80% function in n his arm - lifelong - and if it had been left he would have lost full function .
A few days later , the doctor from the original hospital called him to “check” that the new hospital were going to be doing something about his arm . Maybe I’m over stressed and tired , but to me that seems like he was covering his back .
Our lives are upside down . He’s very newly self employed with no insurance he had only been self employed 5 weeks . We have nothing , we’ve gone on to benefits and I will be working at some point again hopefully but I’ve not been able to I’m pretty much his carer and I’m so scared of going back to work and leaving him alone all day , every day - especially as after the shoulder op he will be even more limited as it’s 12 weeks recovery . All of this now is due to the fall as he was healing nicely before that . Part of me thinks - is it me , did I not do enough , he shouldn’t have been home with that step but then I tried my damn hardest to speak to someone, I told the nurses , my husband told the doctor, physio … we followed the “expert” advice , I’m not a doctor !
Does someone need to be accountable for this ? Even just so it doesn’t happen to anyone else . Can I do anything about the refusal of the replacement as it’s going to ruin his life if he doesn’t . I don’t know what to do .