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My husband's treatment, care and support plus our experience...

Posted By Underwhelmed

"My husband's treatment, care and support plus our experience as a family at the hands of NHS"

About: Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow / General surgery (Wards 9a, 9b, 9c & 9d)

(as a relative),

My husband was diagnosed with cancer at the end of January. Diagnosed as curative with 90 percent survival.

Immediately following diagnosis he required a tracheostomy and a nasal line to ensure he could breath and eat as his tumour at the base of his tongue was large.

Treatment plan began and quickly it became apparent in our experience, that NHS staff across all types of service delivery is questionable in its quality, professionalism, ability and compassion.

Beatson- nurses, radiographers, pharmacists, consultants that we came into contact with all too busy and at times too rude to even give seriously ill people the time and respect they deserve.

QEUH- nurses, consultants, domestics, intensive care staff again, that we had contact with, were amongst some of the rudest and least compassionate people I have ever been unfortunate to spend time in the presence of.

Sadly my husband passed away suddenly and unexpectedly after 3 weeks in ''NHS care''. I use that term ironically. If I took the time to list the full catalogue of errors and our disgraceful experience at the hands of NHS people truely wouldn't believe it.

Time for those people in the NHS who take home the biggest salaries to stand up and give responses.

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Responses

Response from Lorna Fairlie, Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 7 years ago
Lorna Fairlie
Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager,
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

I work in a small team in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde which seeks to involve patients and carers in the work of the NHS. The biggest part of my role is in managing feedback projects across the Board area, one of which is Patient Opinion. It is my job to give our patients and carers the opportunity to give us feedback, and to make sure that this is passed to the right people to help us improve the services we provide.

Submitted on 23/08/2016 at 09:17
Published on Care Opinion at 09:34

Dear Underwhelmed,

First of all I’d like to offer my deepest sympathies to you for the loss of your husband. I can only imagine what a difficult time you will be going through, particularly because of the very sudden nature of his passing. It is clear that you have also been left with some questions about the care your husband received which we would like to help in addressing for you.

You have specifically commented on the attitudes and behaviours of staff at both the Beatson and at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, which has really disappointed me. Our staff take pride in providing care which is kind, compassionate and professional and fortunately this is what the vast majority of our patients and their loved ones receive when in our care. I am therefore really saddened to hear that you felt the opposite from not only individual members of staff, but all of the staff you encountered in both hospitals. Because of this, I think it is really important that we look into this urgently for you.

You have also suggested that there were further elements of your husband’s treatment that were not to the high standard you, or we, would expect and so it would be really helpful if you could give me more details about that in particular. I understand that you may not be comfortable sharing these details on a public site, but if you could contact me directly on lorna.gray@ggc.scot.nhs.uk I would really appreciate it. This way you can tell the full story of your husband’s care, and we can work out the best way to take this forward with you.

I hope to hear from you soon so that we can help to address some of the issues that you have been left with.

Best Wishes,

Lorna

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