"Our story is about equipment and care for my Father"

At the beginning of October I was asked by a medical professional to make contact with the team as she had been in our house taking care of my uncle when she realised my father had declined. It was her that told me that I should be in touch with the urgent care team, which is what I did.

The first responding staff member I spoke to appear to be a little bit off hand with me and asked me how I’ve got the phone number to be requesting help for my father. I felt they were a little abrupt in their voice and sounded a little bit irritated with me if I’m honest. They proceeded to send an assessor who was a different staff member. 

I unfortunately was not at the house but my daughter-in-law was taking care of the situation in my absence we all live together and the care of my father is shared between my son my daughter-in-law and myself. I spoke with the assessing staff member on the phone who I felt was not listening to what I was saying properly the fact I found them quite rude and hung up the phone and said if I was needed they would call me back.

They proceeded to assess my father went halfway through the assessment listen to my father‘s chest and said he could hear crackling on his lungs. They then told my daughter-in-law that he would need to go to hospital as they couldn’t deal with this any Further. We waited for an ambulance for four hours which is okay I suppose but the ambulance crew arrived and said that they couldn’t take my father to the hospital they said they couldn’t listen to his breathing as they weren’t qualified to do so. They told us that they then had to report back to somebody else to see what to do next. They said a doctor would call us and come and make a visit three hours later.

Somebody called again. Didn’t want to listen to the information that we were given again was rude abrupt I’m not kind. I’m in the end hung up on us telling us that a doctor would be calling thank goodness five hours later in the early hours of the morning the amazing doctor came he explained to us what was happening with my father as he has COPD and this is why his breathing was difficult. I explained to him that we had called the community care team in so that my father could be reassessed for additional equipment.

Thank goodness for the doctor and for him doing a re-referral for the community care team I am happy to say that a lady called Sam came out to do an assessment on my father this morning from your community care team South I would like to say at this point she was absolutely incredible with my father and with my daughter-in-law. I am sorry that I have had to write such a negative start to this feedback but I do feel it’s important that everybody that shares NHS help and support should be done so with the upmost care and respect.

I can’t say that the first staff member we dealt with on the phone or the 2nd member of staff that came to do the assessment showed support or care from my father as a family we try to do all we can to support him we asked for very little support from the NHS unless it’s vital necessary and although we’ve had a negative experience today we have the most positive outcome from one of your urgent care team if there is anyway that you can pass on my thanks to her please do so with kind regards.