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Care Opinion

Waiting months for a date of sons operation

Posted By stillwaiting7777

"Waiting months for a date of sons operation"

About: Kent & Canterbury Hospital / Trauma and orthopaedics

(as a parent/guardian),

My son was seen in January as he needs an operation on his hand. His life and work are affected by this. We were promised a letter with a date out in a month. No letter arrived so called the hospital. Was given the runaround and told his notes had been lost.

Eventually managed to contact his consultant's secretary, passed to orthopaedics waiting list then to a patient coordinator. They seem to have a permanent answerphone on and do not return calls. I contacted PALS end of Feb in the end. PALS did not reply to my email but someone phoned and said we would deff have a letter out with a date for his op by the end of March, this message was left on my answerphone. We waited- no letter, so contacted PALS again via email. Again, no response for PALS so again, rang the secretary etc.

We again had a message left on our answerphone promising a letter with his appointment would come out to us by the end of April. It's now May and we have still had no letter from the hospital and no date for his operation. I have again contacted PALS via email but as they have not responded to my last two emails I don't hold out much hope of a response or any help from them.

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Responses

Response from Sally Smith, Chief Nurse and Director Of Quality, East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust 6 years ago
Sally Smith
Chief Nurse and Director Of Quality,
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 13/05/2017 at 16:06
Published on Care Opinion on 14/05/2017 at 11:31

picture of Sally Smith

I am so sorry to hear of these unacceptable delays. Please may you email me on Sally.smith2@nhs.net. Please include the details of the patient, consultant and if possible hospital number.

I will then put you in touch with a person who can help.

please accept my apologies for the lack of response from PALS. I will personally pick this up.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Best wishes

Sally

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

Update posted by stillwaiting7777 (a parent/guardian)

Pals contacted me, said they did not know why I hadn't had a response from them and would ensure this would not happen again. I was assured that within a few days someone would contact us and give us an idea of dates for my sons operation. No one has yet contacted us with any date and I have emailed pals twice since and again, no response. We are no further forward than when PALS first contacted me after seeing my story on here. Despite all the assurances from Pals, we have still not been contacted by phone or email and given any date for my son's operation or had any further letters from the hospital of anyone else about this.

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