"Acute Referral Unit care"

My wife noticed that the sight in her left eye had markedly worsened over only a few days. She made an appointment with our GP, who found that she was unable to make out even the top letter on the eye test chart and told her to go to the Acute Referral Unit at Bournemouth. She phoned the clinic late morning and explained to the Triage nurse what had happened but was told they had no appointments that day and she have to come in the following day.

We arrived on time for our appointment and my wife was seen twice by a pleasant and helpful nurse. However, overall we had to wait around three hours before we saw a doctor, even though the clinic did not seem at all busy. The doctor examined my wife's eye and then said "I will take your blood pressure and then tell you what I have found." She had to fetch a nurse because she could not get the blood pressure machine to work and they were laughing about the capabilities of doctors and nurses. Their demeanour at least reassured us there was not anything seriously wrong and so it was a profound shock when she told my wife there was a blocked vein in the back of her eye, there was nothing that could be done and the sight of her eye was permanently lost. There was a complete lack of reassurance or suggestions of support services that might help my wife to cope, and the doctor went on to describe a number of possible complications and said that my wife would need to be seen again in about three weeks. We asked for more information but the doctor was unable to find anything, so wrote the name of the problem on a piece of paper and suggested we looked on the internet.

It is now nearly five weeks since this happened and in spite of numerous phone calls we still have no follow-up appointment ("The secretary only works part-time," "The person who does the appointments will be back next week.")

I can only compare this very unfavourably with my wife's experience at Poole Hospital late last year when she attended the Dorset Cancer Centre to have chemotherapy for Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Without exception the staff were sympathetic, caring, helpful and, most of all, efficient. She was urged to contact the Centre at any time with any concerns and when she did, her concerns were dealt with promptly and sympathetically. One genuinely felt that, when it came to patient care, nothing was too much trouble.

To summarise, there are two main areas of concern

1) Why did it take more than 24 hours from our first contact with the clinic to when my wife saw a doctor? If someone losing the sight in their eye is not an emergency, what is?

2) When is my wife going to get a follow-up appointment?