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"Not enough said or done"

About: Ninewells Hospital / Acute Medical Unit (AMU)

(as a relative),

My wife attended Ninewells Hospital in Dundee in January 2021 for an infusion of potassium. She had been suffering with swollen and painful legs and believed that potassium deficiency may be the cause. Nobody ever corrected or confirmed this. While she was at Ninewells she had a scan which showed that she had well advanced pancreatic cancer. Due to Covid she was alone and had nobody to support her. The medical team claim that she was fully aware of what had been explained. A 69 year old lady, alone, frightened and confused would NOT have fully understood her condition OR the planned treatment.

Upon discharge she was cared for by the district nursing team at our local Medical Centre and in the file detailing her care plan ( names of nurses, planned treatment, contact numbers and notes or treatment/medication etc) was a copy of the discharge letter from Ninewells. This letter contained a damning phrase which along with a detailed and chilling description of my wife's "lesion" was the almost throw away aside, that a lesion was found in the same location when the patient had her appendix removed at Ninewells in 2017. 

The cause of my annoyance, nay lets say abject disgust, is not the fact that ma darling wife had cancer, nor that she died from it. My disgust stems from the fact that Nothing was done or said, either by the surgical team at Ninewells, nor at our Primary Care centre. Why?

Had this been flagged and followed up then perhaps treatment may have been administered sooner. Maybe with life-extending outcomes, maybe not. Yet the fact remains that the NHS appears to have made serious mistakes. I want answers, not excuses, and for once nobody can hide behind Covid as an excuse as this saga began in 2017. .

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Responses

Response from Tom Jarosz-Cromie, BU Team Manager (Cancer, Complaints & Claims), Business Unit, NHS Tayside 2 years ago
Tom Jarosz-Cromie
BU Team Manager (Cancer, Complaints & Claims), Business Unit,
NHS Tayside
Submitted on 19/10/2021 at 11:16
Published on Care Opinion at 11:57


Dear Craigmill48,

Thank you for sharing your story. We are very sorry for the experience you and your family have had and please accept our condolences on the loss of your wife.

You raise some serious issues which we feel should be investigated fully, we would be grateful if you could contact our Complaints Team to allow us to do that and we will feedback to you in due course.

Complaints and Feedback Team

Ninewells Hospital

Dundee

DD1 9SY

Email: tay.feedback@nhs.scot

Tel: 0800 027 5507

Thank you,

Tom

Dr Tom Jarosz-Cromie
Team Manager (Cancer, Complaints & Legal Claims)

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