"Colorectal surgery after care"

I had an operation in February for an abscess/fistula and the aftercare that I received was shocking. I had so many queries and concerns with my healing process and there was know body to consult with. I was constantly chasing my colorectal surgeon who would take in the region of 5-8 days to call me back. My follow up appointment was meant to be scheduled 2 weeks after my operation but instead was booked in for 4 and a half weeks after! The day before my first follow up appointment I had a phone call to inform me that my appointment was cancelled and that they couldn’t tell me at that point when they could next book me an appointment! I had to phone around yet again to try and get an appointment booked in a desperately needed to see the surgeon as I had concerns with the healing process and had questions that I wanted to be answered. I explained my concerns to the appointments line who scheduled one for the following week which would now make it 6 weeks!!

PALS are also absolutely useless. I made a complaint to them when I was chasing my colorectal surgeon as I needed him to return my call desperately and he hadn’t done for 5 days so I informed PALS of this who informed me that my complaint would be escalated and they would either get my surgeon or a member of his team to contact me. That really reassured me, however PALS never returned my calls until 7 days after I made that complaint. In the meantime (2 days ago) whilst waiting for my first follow up appointment I have developed an infection at the incision site and yet again cannot get in touch with my surgeon to discuss this with so ended up having to attend A & E where they told me I have sepsis and have given me a course of antibiotics. I’m extremely unhappy with this as I would have liked to discuss all of this with my surgeon but am unable to do so as my calls are not being returned until 5-8 days later so instead will have to wait until my FIRST follow up appointment which I might add will be 6 weeks from my operation date. The operation that I underwent is based on the healing process. If it doesn’t heal correctly I will need to undergo the operation again. This could well be the case as I won’t have been seen until 6 weeks after operation! I will find out if this is the case next week! I understand that the nhs are stretched and do not expect a phone call back within the hour or even that day but 5-8 days later when a patient has concerns is unacceptable. I’m extremely disappointed and will no longer be recommending this hospital in the future as I do not wish them to have the same experiences as I have.