"Being a patient is hard work - leadership makes it worse"

I'm full of sympathy for NHS staff, who've had a hard time of it over the past few years. But thinking about my older relative's recent stay at FPHSFT left me wondering if it's not harder for their patients. She was first admitted through ED after a 10 hr wait for an ambulance. ED at Frimley is really top notch - excellent staff who are frankly at the top of their game. 

In the days afterwards, what really struck me wasn't so much what happened to my relative (although to be honest a lot of it wasn't great), but what was happening around her: listless nurses, associate practitioners, and care assistants often moving around without evident guidance or purpose; a real lack of evident leadership in some clinical settings; some staff seemed sullen or even hostile in interactions with each other. I was also surprised - and slightly alarmed - by how aggressive some staff were towards patients and their visitors. Of course, I could only visit for one hour a day, but across several stays in several wards, over a period of couple of months, it was never easy to discover who was in charge of my relative's care, or even who - if anyone - was in charge of the wards she was on.  

What made me most anxious was that three times I asked what her goals of care plan was and three times no-one could answer. Finally, I discovered that it was the RESPECT goals of care plan, but I also discovered that as it was "too much hard work" it hadn't been filled in and so no discussion had taken place with my realative or me as next of kin about goals of care and DNACPR through multiple hospitalisations. There are some exceptional young doctors at Frimley and we saw evidence of genuinely outstanding care from some nursing and care assistant staff, but the general impression that I formed was that I would do everything in my power to ensure that my relative did not have to be a patient at FPNHSFT again. I have moved her 'out of area' and so I may have succeeded in this.