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"Lack of support following surgery, both times ."

About: Community Services / Nail Surgery Service

(as the patient),

This will be the second time I have had the big toe nail removed after regrowth (my choice). The staff doing the surgery were brilliant and very patient as I have a history of anxiety.

The staff (at work) have been brilliant too, always answering any questions I have had an had a look at toe when needed (in-between their own patients).

The only issue I have is there is no follow up unless you're elderly. Which I find utterly ridiculous, especially when they have used the chemical to kill the nail matrix which can cause delayed healing and burns that can become infected. I'm told to dress it and bathe it to keep it clean, I've been doing this for 5 weeks now and the infection has reoccurred with now a deep crack between cuticle and the infection area.

I was told by GP to contact podiatry if the first lot of antibiotics didn't work. Well here we are, waited all day for a call back from podiatry with no result.

Severely annoyed at the lack of support following surgery, both times .

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Responses

Response from Mark Finnon, NHS Tayside 2 years ago
Mark Finnon
NHS Tayside
Submitted on 26/05/2023 at 17:38
Published on Care Opinion on 30/05/2023 at 09:47


picture of Mark Finnon

Dear Patientid1990,

First of all, apologies for the delay in my reply.

As we are a Tayside service, nail surgery is carried out on a weekly basis in various clinical sites across Tayside, so without knowing the locality you received your nail surgery (Angus, P&K or Dundee) and your personal details (which I acknowledge you would not post on this forum) then we are unable to investigate the specifics of your patient experience in full.

It is never the intention of the Podiatry service that any patient under our care should feel that they cannot be seen if they are having problems, so it is extremely regrettable that this has been your experience.

Post operative infection of nail surgery wounds is indeed a risk, but it is a risk that is determined by a number of factors which are individual to each patient. They are definitely not determined by age and neither is access to post operative care, so I apologise if this is the impression you have been given. Without knowing your medical history and the details of your surgery then I cannot not make a judgement on your individual risk, but I hope you were given the written and verbal post operative care advice. This does detail the potential post operative complications which can be associated with nail surgery and the actions you should take if you encounter them. You have clearly had the need to contact us and unfortunately we have not responded to you by the time you have posted this story. I am hopeful that we have been in touch with you but if we have not I would ask that you contact me directly so we can make sure you are seen as soon as possible. You can do this by emailing:

tay.taysidepodiatry@nhs.scot

and I would ask that you mark the email for the attention of myself (Mark Finnon). If we have been in touch and you would still like to discuss this matter further then I would be happy to; and again please contact me by email as per the advice above.

Your feedback allows us to try and meet the expectations of all our service users and I am grateful to you for contacting us despite the issues you have encountered.

I hope your post surgery infection and healing improve and just to once again reiterate that if I can be of any further assistance then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Kind regards,

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