"Treatment at the Beatson"

This is probably one of the hardest things I have ever felt the need to write. This experience was from 2017, it has taken until now for me to be able to express my feelings. My Mother was taken into one of the wards within Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, from the very start we were absolutely appalled at the care (or lack of) that my Mother received.

Our experience started with a transfer from another hospital to the Beatson. When we arrived on the ward we found our mother in a very poor state, despite phoning ahead to try and explain some of the complexities of her condition and things that would help mitigate her pain and give her back some control over her environment we found none of these had been listened to or reacted to. As a family we were coming to terms emotionally that Mum was deteriorating very fast and we were doing everything we could to try and maintain her dignity and comfort. In doing so we were met with absolute hostility and very little engagement. It came across loud and clear that they did not care.  We felt that health care professionals were more interested in covering their own backsides, political point scoring and buck passing that my Mother, the person who should have been at the centre of their focus, was overlooked.

The ward environment itself was like a 70's nightmare, ancient, dilapidated fixtures and fittings and a general lack of modern facilities such as TV/Radio. Patients appeared to be sitting there staring into space with zero stimulation. Upon arrival my Mother was sat in a manual recliner chair which was uncomfortable for her and gave her no control to move herself, had the ward staff actually properly engaged with us they would have understood some of the the things that we tried to tell them about our Mother, instead we were treated as a problem and bluntly told to "take it up with management if you are unhappy".

Mum was uncomfortable, distressed and we felt helpless. She was on a lot of painkillers so spent a lot of the time sleeping, she was also the type of person that kept her true feelings to herself so as not to cause any trouble. We felt this was taken advantage of by the nursing staff as they claimed she was comfortable when she really was not, we tried to explain that Mum was reluctant to say anything most probably due to her not wanting a fuss and the effects of the very strong pain medication as well as Mum was probably at this point coming to terms with her condition more so than ever before.

After speaking with some senior people things did improve slightly for about 48 hours, some of the measures they put in place after we raised our concerns were merely forgotten about and not followed up until we raised it again, more hostility followed from some individuals on the ward.

During her stay, they moved Mum to a single room, to say they abandoned her in that room is an understatement. The room was a pigsty, Mum's belongings were shoved anywhere with no care to whether or not she would be able to reach them etc. The bedside unit was shoved into a corner and left with the wardrobe door/drawer facing the wall. The room was dark, dingy and Mum hated it. We tidied the room as much as we could and made Mum comfortable, it was at this point that I discovered the drawer was actually a lockable drawer used to store her drugs. This drawer was unlocked the entire time my Mum was a patient there, anyone who wanted to could have accessed those drugs including my Mum.

On more than one occasion we found Mum in a soiled condition, urine or fluids from her wounds were dripping onto the floor despite raising this nothing appeared to be done to mitigate this by adjusting dressings or placing a pad on the floor to absorb the leakage. On one occasion when I found Mum soiled I had to raise it quite strongly before anything was done, Mum said that she worried when we were not there as some of the staff were vile. With everything going on our primary focus should have been Mum but instead we had the added worry of leaving Mum there with god knows what happening or more pointedly, not happening.

During her time there, it was clear that staff were aware that a formal complaint had been made. This manifested itself at one point by flippant comments made to my Father by a nurse. These comments distressed my Father who decided to address them directly with the nurse but as he approached her she must have realised and became apologetic and over nice, we knew that she had realised she was out of order and this just added to the fears we had about the care in that place.

I wont say that all of the staff were bad, that would be totally untrue, during her stay we did interact with some very nice staff members who could not do enough for Mum, to us this just highlighted the stark contrast between those who did care and those who looked like they hated the place with a passion and were brimming with negativity about their workplace.

Mum desperately wanted out of the Beatson, she hated it. It was during this time that we received the news that we all dreaded, Mum only had a few weeks left. Even this news was delivered in a chaotic fashion with no real leader or coordination. Mums consultant waffled and appeared to be all over the place, a specialist nurse then attempted to direct the conversation back on point at which point the consultant seemed to have remedied whatever blip they'd had and took back over. In the end we ended up in a room away from Mum with the consultant becoming distressed (we have no idea why to this day).  The consultant delivered the news to us after being asked to directly by my Sister but at this point no one had shared this news with Mum. We had to suggest that this was done. I'm still unclear as to what exactly went on that day but it just rubber stamped our view that the Beatson is one of the most chaotic, disorganised and poor areas of the NHS we have ever experienced.

Luckily, Mum was transferred to a Hospice back into her own health board area soon after. The care she received in the Hospice was light years ahead of even the better parts of care at the hands of the Beatson.

As a family we will never forget the upset and heartache that resulted in Mums admission to the Beatson, nor will we forget the vile attitudes and downright hostility displayed to us at one of the most horrendous times of our lives. We cannot ever forgive the Beatson for what they put us and our Mother through.

Sadly, Mum passed away a few weeks after, I am just relieved that she passed away in an environment surrounded by the love from her family and the kind of love and care provided from the Hospice staff that the Beatson could only ever dream of.