"Thank you to the staff"

Our family member was under the care of Forth Valley NHS for 5 months prior to his death.  Throughout this time he was well cared for by all the nursing staff looking after him.

We would like to thank the doctors, his psychiatric nurse and his Palliative care nurse specialist, and all of the staff on Ward 4 for looking after our family member for the last two months of his life.  We would specifically like to thank a number of the nurses for their kindness and compassion.

Despite having a challenging job, all staff on Ward 4 had a kind and caring approach, we particularly appreciated their lovely smiles and the way they always answered buzzes promptly even when short staffed.  Our family member had a serious psychiatric illness and we believed he would be best placed looked after by trained psychiatric nurses; and this is what we observed in practice.

On reflection , we believe there are two lessons to be learned from the last months of our family members life.

1  He was taken off his anti-psychotic medication within days of his admission to hospital.  He had been on this drug for 15 months at home prior to admission and it managed his symptoms well.  We were not given an adequate reason for him being taken off the drug.  Following a succession of trials of alternative drugs (none of which were deemed to work) he was finally put back on the original drug 4 months later.  We believe constant changes in his medication caused unnecessary distress to our family member, his family and the nurses and staff members looking after him.  If medication works in advanced disease then we believe it may be best to leave a person on that medication and consider the well-being of the patient as most important, rather than NICE guidelines.

2.  After spending 2 months on an acute ward at FVRH where he required 1;1 care for the majority of time (in part due to falls) he was transferred to Wallace Suite at Bellfield Center.   To go directly from 1;1 care to a room where he was left on his own was not easy for him and we believe this transfer was not appropriate and caused him unnecessary distress.  He had numerous falls in Bellfield and it was only towards the end of his stay that a falls alarm was trialed.

In addition, even though we were told by medical staff that he was transferred to Bellfield with an infection and unresolved delirium we were informed by his social work that he was medically fit for discharge to a care home on admission to the ward.  Pressure was put on the family to find a care home, we could not understand this as he clearly wasn't fit and believe the constant 'mixed messages' we were receiving throughout his stay at Wallace Suite were a result of poor communication between clinical staff and social work.

Thank you to the staff at Forth Valley for listening to us and taking action (ie. transfer to Ward 4) to resolve what was a very distressing situation for all.