Care Opinion

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Waiting

Posted By Elleax

"Waiting"

About: Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow

(as a relative),

My mother is in her 80s & was seen by her GP at noon at home. Requires to be transferred for medical tests. After waiting till 1930 for an ambulance which never appeared took a taxi to Glasgow's state of the art hospital. Where after confirming they were expecting her, she is still waiting to be seen sitting in a wheelchair and it is now 1248am. I think it's a total disgrace. She's an old frail woman.

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Responses

Response from Lorna Fairlie, Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 8 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 15/02/2017 at 11:47
Published on Care Opinion at 13:13

Dear Elleax,

I completely understand your frustration here and I am sorry that your mother has had such a wait - I hope that it didn't take much longer after your post for her to be seen and that she is now either home or being looked after in the best place for her.

I have passed on your comments to the management team for the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital to highlight the issues you raise here, about both the waiting time, but also about how we can help people be more comfortable if there are unavoidable delays in them being seen.

I'll come back to you with more information when I have it, but in the meantime, I wish you and your mother all the best,

Lorna

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful

Update posted by Elleax (a relative)

Dear Lorna

Thankyou for your response. Unfortunately my mother is still unwell and finally at some point through the night was moved to a ward. Entered the system monday and got moved to a bed Wednesday. I have no complaints on the whole about the care once she eventually got it. I think the system is a shambles and I am only glad my mother has me and my family to insist that she is not overlooked. I think it is unacceptable to place elderly confused frail patients in beds in corridors or cubicles.

Elleax

Response from Lorna Fairlie, Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 8 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 16/02/2017 at 11:44
Published on Care Opinion at 12:21

First of all, please pass on my apologies to your mother for the unacceptable delay she had. Monday night into Tuesday morning was particularly busy in the Immediate Assessment Unit (IAU) with a lot of new patients arriving within a relatively short period of time. This in conjunction with the Emergency Department being extremely busy and a lot of new patients requiring beds, meant that there was a delay in patients leaving the IAU to go on to the wards. This led to difficulties with clinical space and a larger than usual workload. We do continually monitor activity in the IAU, and across the rest of the hospital, and try to manage such peaks as best we can.

In those circumstances, it is really important that we keep patients and their families up to date and keep communicating with them to reassure them that they haven't been forgotten about and that we are working to ensure they are seen as quickly as possible. I will feed this back to our team in the IAU.

Again, I am sorry for the delays that you and your mother experienced and sorry to hear she is still unwell, although I'm glad that the care she has been getting has been good and hope that she recovers quickly.

Gerry Wright

Lead Nurse, IAU

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful

Update posted by Elleax (a relative)

Thank you for responding. I accept that at times the department is extremely busy but one of my points is when you have a referral and are expecting them would it not make more sense to have a separate department to attend to them. By insisting that my mother goes to your A&E only adds that departments problems. Added to the fact that it just increases everybodies wait and that then leads to raised anxiety and frustration and has not helped my mothers mental state.The system at present works for nobody especially when the staff are to busy to offer the reassurance that you correctly point out is important at a time when emotions are high.

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