"Lack of Community Care for frail Elderly Man"

My elderly, disabled and housebound Father with multiple health conditions, got a catheter due to urinary retention approximately four years ago. At the time it was fitted at Hairmyers, a false passage was created and a specialist had to be brought from Monklands to complete the procedure. Since then, it has had to be changed in a hospital setting, usually every twelve weeks but on several occasions, mid way through that period in A&E due to infections, blockages etc.

A urologist who attended to him on one of those visits to A&E approximately three years ago, stated that the false passage was now fully healed and going forward it could be changed at home by the Community Nurses. The urologist assured us they would update his notes accordingly and this would take effect. They didn’t and it hasn’t and has therefore had to continue to visit a hospital to have the procedure.

He is increasingly frail due to Stage 4 Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and now sleeps approximately 98% of the time, his mobility is extremely poor. He has had the current catheter since late November 2022 and it started to give him problems approximately two weeks ago. He was given an antibiotic by his GP due to pain and blood in his urine, which made no difference.

In the last 10 days, his SLC carers have called the Community Nurses out because of this on at least four occasions and they cannot change it as his notes still say it has to be done in hospital. He has also had visits from an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) from his surgery and late last night, and out of hours GP via 111, as it is now leaking as well as the pain and large amount of blood.

Still, it seems the only solution is for us to take an elderly, frail and very unwell man to Monklands A&E and wait approximately 16 hours in a place which could expose him to Covid, Flu and Norovirus and other infections, putting his life (and ours) at risk. Not only that, the NHS are requesting via social media to please to avoid A&E unless life threatening and suggesting other healthcare professionals may help.

In this case, they can’t, or simply won’t and my Dad is in pain and regularly soaked in his own urine, but no one seems to care other than his carers and us.