Care Opinion

Wound Care

Posted By LBrown51

"Wound Care"

About: Glasgow Royal Infirmary / Plastic Surgery & Burns (wards 45, 47, 48 & 49) Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow / Orthopaedics (Wards 10a, 10b, 10c &10d)

(as a relative),

My mum was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth hospital (Glasgow) in May 2018 for a routine ankle operation with the expectation to be in and out within one week. Her operation was deemed to be successful.

Post op recovery fracture blisters were discovered very soon after the operation. The fracture blisters were being dressed in hospital on a regular basis for a period of two weeks. My mum was then discharged home with a cast on her leg.

My mum was then asked to go back to hospital every week for 6 weeks via patient transport (70 mile round trip). During this time my mum was picked up at 8am and wasn't returned home until after 6pm. During these visits she was not once offered food or drinks. As she was in a cast her mobility was limited. At one point during her visit she asked a nurse if she could get any food. The nurse returned a ferro Roche.

On another occasion she asked a nurse to fetch her a sandwich as she couldn't walk to the shop, the nurse said this wasn't something she was allowed to do. On her sixth visit she saw a different consultant, he advised she had to be admitted immediately to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary to the Plastic Surgery department. Whereupon her initial treatment was the debridement of the wound followed by live maggot treatment.

At no point was any family member approached to be advised of a care plan or the seriousness of the condition of my mums wound. She then received a skin graft and her hospital stay at the Royal totalled to one month. Thereafter she was discharged home.

Despite the plastic surgery she has been left with severe disfigurement on her foot and since her initial admittance her condition is now worse than it had ever been and she has since said she wishes she had never got the operation in the first place. My mum is still in pain and is now using a walker (she never needed this before) she is still under outpatient care. To put this into perspective a routine 7 day operation is still continuing after almost 5 months.

More about:
Do you have a similar story to tell? Tell your story & make a difference ››

Responses

Response from Lorna Fairlie, Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 5 years ago
Lorna Fairlie
Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager,
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

I work in a small team in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde which seeks to involve patients and carers in the work of the NHS. The biggest part of my role is in managing feedback projects across the Board area, one of which is Patient Opinion. It is my job to give our patients and carers the opportunity to give us feedback, and to make sure that this is passed to the right people to help us improve the services we provide.

Submitted on 30/10/2018 at 09:13
Published on Care Opinion at 09:51

Dear LBrown51,

What a long and drawn out process this has been for your Mum. I can completely understand how frustrated and fed up she must be feeling, and I sympathise with your own feelings of frustration at not feeling included in her care as a close family member.

While I know that we can't resolve completely what has already happened, I would like the opportunity to look at what we can do going forward for your Mum, but also to see where we could make improvements for other patients that may be going through similar procedures. This could be in how we communicate better with patients (and their families) about the plan of care, or how we look after patients like your Mum who may be travelling a long way for an appointment and spending a long time in our hospitals.

To help us do this, I would appreciate if you could get in touch with me with a few more details and we can take it from there - my email address is lorna.fairlie@ggc.scot.nhs.uk.

I hope to hear from you soon,

Best Wishes,

Lorna

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful
Opinions
Next Response j
Previous Response k