"The care of patients"

I just read a story on your site from three years ago about the nursing care on one of the Vascular wards  in Morriston Hospital, Swansea. I’m not sure what happened as a result of the author's concern at the time but things do not seem to have improved.

Like him I have found the vascular team helpful but the nursing regime is poor indeed. Not only has it been tantamount to negligent, the demeanour and attitude of some of the senior staff has been confrontational, defensive and failing to understand the case before discussing it.

They have attempted to discuss my relatives case with us from a position of certainty when it has become self evident they have not read the notes or familiarised themselves with the detail.

Communication and coordination of care has been poor. A determination to rush to prioritise discharge has blinded the nursing staff to the obvious.

Since expressing concerns through an intermediary things have improved somewhat but I can’t help feeling it’s because the nursing staff now feel under scrutiny.

It is appalling that at a time of great stress we have had to divert energy and time to countering the deficiencies in the nursing by having to raise such concerns.

Given the similarity between my experience and the author from 3 years ago I can’t help but feel nothing has been learnt and the deficiencies must be at a leadership and institutional level.

Dealing with individual cases without seeing them as an example of systemic and leadership failure will not save people like us having to suffer repeated experiences of neglect and poor nursing care.

For clarity I am not referring to ward R. It all falls far short of what we should expect from the nursing professionals.

I recognise the strain in the system and the pressure on individuals but we can’t allow this to be a hiding place for bad practice. In spite  of the constrains we should be able to rely on professional and compassionate care for our loved ones when they are at their most vulnerable.