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Care Opinion

Visiting and communication with families during lockdown

Posted By Innes

"Visiting and communication with families during lockdown"

About: Glasgow Royal Infirmary / Elderly Medicine (12, 14, 18, 23, 29, 30, 32, 33,35 ,39 & 53)

(as a relative),

My elderly mother was admitted (as an emergency) to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary earlier this Summer. She was being treated for frailty and cognitive decline.   In accordance with Lockdown Government policy she was denied a visitor.  

During her admission my mother who is deaf and registered partially sighted became agitated and delirious.   Telephone calls on the ward phone became increasingly upsetting to the whole family as it became apparent that my mother was acutely distressed.   She begged us to come to the hospital and take her home.  

After several fraught telephone conversations with both ward nursing and medical staff (on the issue of my mother’s capacity) it was decided that my mother would be allowed home as soon as possible in order to allow her to recover from her ordeal in a familiar environment with her family. I strongly feel that if my mother had been afforded the right to an essential visitor it would have been possible for her to remain an inpatient long enough to have the investigations that on a more recent hospital admission have revealed her diagnosis of dementia.

Agitated and distressed patients with a CONFIRMED diagnosis of dementia have been afforded the right to an essential visitor during lockdown.  Agitated and distressed patients who are SUSPECTED of having dementia should be afforded the same privilege. To do otherwise is surely inhumane.  

I have already contacted the Scottish Government on this issue.   The reply I received from the Government   made it quite clear that the hospital visiting policy be implemented using a flexible compassionate and person centred approach. In order to comply with the Government’s policy it would be necessary for senior management in the Royal Infirmary to advise managers at ward level to use their discretion and permit the flexibility that the Scottish Government told me it desires. I trust that this has happened?  

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Responses

Response from Paul Hayes, Patient Experience & Public Involvement Manager, Patient Experience Team, NHSGGC 3 years ago
Paul Hayes
Patient Experience & Public Involvement Manager, Patient Experience Team,
NHSGGC

Submitted on 29/09/2020 at 09:48
Published on Care Opinion at 09:58

picture of Paul Hayes

Hello Innes, I'm very sorry to hear of your experience. I have reached out to colleagues in Glasgow Royal Infirmary and have been asked to share the below reply with you from John Carson, Associate Chief Nurse in NHSGGC.

Dear Innes, I am very sorry to read about the upset and anxiety experienced by your mother and your family during her recent admission to Glasgow Royal Infirmary. I can understand your frustration that isolation from her family may have further contributed to your mother’s cognitive decline.

Staff in Glasgow Royal Infirmary strive to adhere to the principles of compassionate flexibility when it comes to implementing the government guidance around visitor restrictions. I agree that in the case of your mother‘s admission given her cognitive decline and sensory impairment, the presence of a nominated family member would have better supported her patient journey and I am sorry this was not supported. From the details in your feedback I am not certain how long visitor restriction had been in place but the circumstances around those restrictions were new to all staff initially and in some instances staff did have to learn and adapt rapidly to changing guidance. I do not offer this as an excuse, but an honest reflection of circumstances at the time.

I want to reassure you that, through learning and refinement of our processes for supporting essential visitors in recent months, I am confident that in Glasgow Royal Infirmary we now have a group of staff more used to these unusual circumstances and more skilled in working with patients and families to better support contact with loved ones be it directly or through the use of technology.

I am however truly sorry that this was not the experience of your mother or her family and if you would like me to look into the specific details of our staff communication in your mother’s care further please contact me at the details below.

John Carson

Associate Chief Nurse

North Sector

0141 451 5338

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