"Kettering General Hospital Lack of Care, Proffessionalism and Empathy"

I read with concern the complaints made previously against yourselves and was impressed by your assurances that you had every intent on learning from the poor nursing you acknowledge yourselves as falling short of acceptable standards. That was four years ago.   Current data on KGH trust ranks you 129 out of 133 trusts with failings in A & E and General Care, frankly from the experiences we have had, I am not surprised.  

We had been instructed by 111 to request emergency assistance for our elderly mother on at the start of January 2018. Despite requests from two separate doctors, the ambulance took over 6 hours to arrive, this was followed by finally being admitted to the building at least into a corridor which lasted a further One and half, before your staff realised that she needed isolation as norovirus was indicated.   What followed was worse.

Provided with a name tab, so tight (we latterly discovered), that it was cutting the blood supply to her left hand at least meant the pain was lessened for the method of taking blood samples causing telltale bruising to each of her fingers. My mother’s medication (upon which she relies) for example Glaucoma was not administered properly, as a system of charades developed between various medical teams as the message and instructions became diluted with each changeover, and the various boxes of medicines prescribed by your own hospital remained unopened.

Importantly none of your staff appear to be adequately trained in the methods of administering eye drops (Lumigan).   Your staff appear to think it is ok to bark their orders at dementia patients as if this should somehow achieve the desired result e. g. Roll whilst pulling a blanket from under her caused only distress, no ‘please’ no ‘can you help us by’. Upon being told that she should maintain her oxygen mask despite my mother’s protestations to the alternative I. e. that it was already decided that it was no longer needed the orderly stormed off the find out for himself whereupon his return, he ripped the mask of mums’ face causing the prongs to ‘ping’ across her nose.  

Management of Violence and Aggression Policy – HSC029  The NHS has defined non-physical assaults as “The use of inappropriate words or behaviour causing distress and/or constituting harassment”.   I presume that the conditions by which you assess assault on your staff equally apply to the patients for which you are entrusted with safe care.   Being constantly shunted from one ward to the next, sometimes at 1. 30 am in the morning.  

Now whilst I do not expect that the NHS runs with a ‘rose tinted Holby’ style, I would expect that where an X-Ray is required for an emergency admission as routine in A& E that that procedure should not then take three days.     Nor do I expect to see warning signs (of specific visitors) for the staff to be wary of on the ward walls.   Nor do I expect to find the wrong name on the bedside cabinet.   Nor do I expect to find unnamed boxes of prescribes pills lying next to an unattended dementia patient that not only should be named but should be in a locked cabinet.   Nor do I expect to find on various occasions that the drip has run out and that the alarm has being going for hours, despite your staff being told and ignored.     Would you please explain just exactly what lessons have been learned over the last four years save your apparent ability to maintain you own position? This is merely a shortened version of the entire debacle.   We feel that there are some very serious allegations here and pending your reply we will be asking for a full investigation.