On Feb 11th I blacked out at work after feeling an enormous pain shoot through my body, to cut a very long story short, and after two woefully negligent trips, after being given morphine, to UCH A&E dept I have been house-bound and virtually bed-bound since.
After much phoning around various places and with no support from my G.P, I was told by Professor Michael Ehrenstein I should be admitted for treatment into neurology ward . I sensed he understood the urgency of the situation. Only 'sensed', because the phone call was relatively short and he did not have time to listen etc.I am a single male, living alone and being looked after on an ad-hoc basis by friends and neighbours.
After many phone calls between myself and various members of the hospital staff, all of which should be recorded and logged for future action, I was called y'day and told a bed was ready and I should come in for an MRI scan, clinical investigation etc. Approx 1 hour later I was called back and told the bed was no longer available. I was assured, previously, I would be in by 10/03 or 11/03/08.
The management and allocation of beds in your dept falls very, very short of the standards expected of the tax payers' NHS, after years of having billions of pounds thrown at it. Your male ward is far too small for the number of patients needed to be treated and you have been aware of this for some time and done nothing about it. The admittance procedure is a farce and actually inhumane. You are aware that patients are in agony, desperate for medical attention and you do next to nothing about improving the situation.
Do not write to me in any way with an apology, simply put into place procedures and practices for your staff to get on with job we pay them to do. No ifs, buts, if only's. Get on with managing the business of caring for unwell people.
My case is a long and complicated one, involving UCH A&E, various other depts and my G.P and legal action is being considered because of the catalogue of negligence. Your management of the ward does not help the situation one jot.
This letter is purely to make the point that the way you manage your wards, T8 for example, is a national disgrace.
Yours
G D C
still in bed some 5 weeks after initial incident.
p.s I might add that it is almost impossible to get through to ward T8 on the telephone and is something else that needs rectifying immediately. This is not a 3rd world country even if we have 3rd world hospital experiences.
