"Impressive treatment, poor administration"

Visiting family in Devon after a bereavement when I had a reoccurrence of an eye problem which took me to Ottery St Mary MIU from where I was referred to emergency ophthalmology at Exeter. I was contacted almost immediately for an appointment in the early afternoon & seen very quickly by Nurse Practitioner Mark. He quickly & efficiently diagnosed the problem & prescribed some immediate treatment & wrote down the instructions so there was no mistake. I have absolutely no complaints about my treatment & was extremely impressed by the efficiency of the system to this point.

However, things have since gone somewhat awry: As I am not resident in Devon I was asked to give an address where I was staying & this is where my discharge letter was sent even though I had by this time returned home. Had it not been my mother’s address it would probably never have reached me.

The injury pertained to my left eye & is referred to throughout the letter except under ‘medication’ where the antibiotic/steroid ointment is to be administered to my right eye. It appears I cannot correct this at my medical practice & neither can I contact anyone at the RD&E. The department contact number on the letter only goes to the booking office & the alternative of contacting the main switchboard goes to an operator who has apparently been told not to contact the West of England Eye Unit but to put all calls through to the booking office!! The operator kindly tried to connect me to one of the secretaries but I got an answerphone for consultants I have not seen & it would have been too complicated to try & leave a message. 

It appears I have no way of correcting this erroneous information which will go on my medical record & may impact my future treatment.

An impressive treatment pathway regrettably let down by poor administration.