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Angioplasty (10/08/17) and femoral-distal...

Story from nhs.uk

"Angioplasty (10/08/17) and femoral-distal..."

About: Royal Preston Hospital / Vascular surgery

I have recently attended the 'hot' vascular clinic and vascular departments for the procedures above and I can not praise the staff enough for their professionalism and treatment of myself and my wife during what has been a stressful time. During the consultations and discussions about the procedures and my wife and I felt comfortable asking questions and staff in the clinic where more than happy to spend time explaining things in such a way that we understood exactly what was going to happen.

On the day of the operation everything went well - I arrived at 7.30 as requested and by 9.00am I was being taken done to surgery. I awoke within the recovery room and this was where the first hitch happened - it was nearly 7 hours before I was transferred to Ward 15 by two of the nurses from recovery. On arrival it was clear that staff on Ward 15 were not happy with me suddenly being transferred to them as it was nearing the end of their shift.

That said whilst spending the last 4 days on the ward, (I was discharged today, Tuesday 17th) all clinical and non clinical staff on the ward have worked extremely hard to make mine, and other patients on the same ward, comfortable and well looked. Nothing is too much trouble and all staff have been courteous at all times.

The main disappointment has been today during my discharge. Having been seen this morning and it bring confirmed that I would be discharged there then seemed to be a hold up of approximately 2hrs whilst a Pharmacist checked the medication I was on and then having been transferred to the Discharge Lounge another wait of approximately 1 1/2 hrs whilst medication was sent down for me to take home. This is the main reason for my poor score on staff co-operation.

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Responses

Response from Royal Preston Hospital 7 years ago
Royal Preston Hospital

Submitted on 06/11/2017 at 09:37
Published on nhs.uk at 10:32

Thank you for your thoughtful and constructive feedback.

We are glad to hear that you felt supported by our staff during this stressful time.

We asked our Pharmacy Technical Services management to comment on your concerns around discharge and they respond as follows:

Firstly, the Trust would like to apologise for any delay you experienced in the discharge process. Many trusts struggle with problems maintaining an efficient discharge process, and it is an area Lancashire Teaching Hospitals has focussed on to bring about improvements. The point at which a patient is informed they will be discharged is often only the start of the discharge process. The doctors must complete the ward rounds (often visiting multiple wards) and urgent tasks before writing the discharge prescription. Pharmacy staff then check the prescription for accuracy and confirm which medicines are required to be dispensed. Following that pharmacist review of the discharge prescription, it is sent to the in-patient pharmacy, where it is prioritised to support the patients’ timely discharge. Here the medicines which have been ordered are dispensed, checked for accuracy, packed and returned to the ward, or delivered to the discharge lounge, in order for the patient to be counselled on the use of their medication prior to them leaving the hospital.

The Trust has recently established the deployment of prescribing pharmacists to generate discharge prescriptions in a more timely manner, creating satellite pharmacies closer to the wards and exploring the use of a 3rd party dispensing service to speed the supply process. We are seeing some good results from these initiatives, and hopefully it will avoid these delays in the future.

Once again, our apologies for any delays you experienced.

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