"My aunt's inpatient experience"

I would like to complain about the appalling process my aunt endured during an episode of acute illness requiring a visit to the hospital. To summarise - on advice of NHS111, my aunt visited the A&E department. I want to make it absolutely clear that at no point in my aunt's inpatient journey any of the nursing/medical staff were at fault, indeed all were exemplary.

In my view, the system is broken.

At approx 11am my aunt registered with the A&E department. Throughout the day at various intervals, she was called for tests etc. At approx. 6pm it was decided to admit her to the receiving ward. She was taken to a 4-bedded room with 3 other male patients. My aunt is in her 80s , and to ask her to share her private space with 3 men was a bit of a stretch and not very fair, however we were just glad that she was getting cared for. She stayed in this noisy and rather eventful ward for 2 days . Again at all times the nursing staff were exemplary, I observed their working practices while visiting, and honestly I do not know how they keep going for their 12 hour shift.

On the Monday morning, there was a very quick decision to move her to ward 3 . She was taken to the ward at 10:30am, on arrival at this ward it transpired that no bed was available for her. I feel this was totally unacceptable. My aunt was sat in a chair at the end of the ward from 10:30 until 19:45 - nine hours and fifteen minutes.

•No privacy for her, encroaching on the two patients she was placed between.

•Had a medical emergency arisen, no immediate access to piped oxygen/suction.

•No named nurse, and indeed the nurses were extremely busy , this extra patient further increased their workload, staffing levels were set without this extra patient. I feel this practice is completely unfair to the nursing staff.

•My Aunt takes warfarin, we had to ask for this to be administered. This would have been missed if we had not asked for it.

•My aunt suffered increased stress, was exhausted and when she eventually got a bed (ward 3 not 4) her bottom was extremely sore from sitting upright all through the day.

•I actually believe this is a form of abuse.

Throughout the day all nursing staff were fabulous, and indeed when the decision was made to transfer her to ward 3 where the bed was waiting, a nurse from ward 4 transferred her -  their shift had finished, however they were so concerned with the appalling ordeal, they took it upon themself to transfer as they said if we waited for a porter it might be another 2 hours!!

Thankfully the next morning, my aunt was discharged home, however this ordeal has knocked her confidence and she has still not completely recovered from her inpatient experience.

I had a quick look at the statistics published on the NHS website ( NHS performs ) for Glasgow Royal and it got quite interesting.

Please can the GRI bed manager confirm how many beds are currently being used in the hospital. This information has not been updated for a number of years (even though the website states that the stats are updated monthly.) Historical data is available. I want to know the exact number (not around 1000 which I have seen on websites). Why the secrecy?? Have you reduced the number of beds?? This certainly seems to be the case when you look at the stats for the number of patients waiting in A&E for over 12 hours. Presumably these are the patients waiting on beds. There has been a vast increase in numbers of patients waiting for this length of time compared to same week last year.

How can a bed manager think it acceptable to move an elderly patient to a chair to wait on a bed in a ward ? I think I know how, it massages the statistics and it looks like the patient has a bed when indeed they are still waiting. The shocking statistics seen on NHS performs should be much worse. It's my belief that you are manipulating the figures.

I know this is not an isolated case as the nurses told me it happens all the time. Please do not make the excuse of covid.

I also looked at staffing numbers, which seem to be almost static. What this figure however does not tell us is

•Are the numbers FTE ?

•How many staff members are on long term sick which will reduce the capacity to admit patients.?

I am submitting this story to make others aware of what is happening within our hospitals. In my view, this needs to be fixed.