"Concern about discharge arrangements"

My  gran was admitted to FVRH A&E late evening due to having two unwitnessed falls that she could not remember.  There was also concern that her blood pressure was extremely high for someone with no history of blood pressure problems. My gran was put into a trolley in A&E, nursing staff who were very kind to my gran and myself were coming in to do basic observational checks on her, due to her blood pressure still being high, throughout the night until the Dr came in at 07:30 (almost 8 hours after she was admitted to the department). 

My first concern is that despite the nursing and auxiliary staff being lovely, although I understand they were very busy, at no point did anyone offer my gran anything to drink, when my gran required to use the toilet (on multiple occasions) she was offered the use of a commode the first time by an auxiliary who assisted her but after this it was left to myself to assist her. This was very upsetting to my gran as she is a proud, and private, woman. I do appreciate that the department and staff are very busy, but if I had not been there with her she would never have spoken up as she doesn't like to bother anyone.

When the Dr came to assess my gran he was very thorough in his questioning, I appreciated that he took my views and concerns into account as my gran had become a little more confused of late. However, when I spoke to him of my concern about her blood pressure being high (at one point her reading was 232/109 and did not decrease much lower than this throughout her admission) the Dr told me he was not overly concerned about her readings and suspected that her blood pressure would normalise on its own.   I found this hard to agree with as she is over 80 with some underlying health conditions and to have a consistently high blood pressure for a sustained period of time is not good for her. However, the Dr agreed that she would need to be admitted for further observations and physio referrals due to her unexplained falls.

 It was almost 6+ hours, a move from A&E to a holding bed in treatments whilst awaiting a bed in a ward, a visit from the physio and another Dr before we were advised that my gran was in fact not going to be admitted (despite her blood pressure still being high), she was to be sent home with some house aids, a referral was to be made for her to get a MECS alarm system installed and advised to contact her own GP with regards to her blood pressure. No discussion about medication management for her blood pressure, discharged with the advice that due to her age that she needs to be more careful. 

Thankfully we were able to get an appointment with her own GP quite quickly, he checked her blood pressure and unsurprisingly it had not gotten better, in fact it was even higher than before .  Her GP immediately admitted her to her local hospital (Royal Alexandria Hospital, Paisley) where she was kept for 2 days, monitored and medicated until her blood pressure returned to within a normal limit, discharged with medications and follow up with her own medical practice. 

It is gravely concerning that an elderly woman was allowed to be discharged from FVRH with consistently high blood pressure which could have caused life changing harm, if not lost her her life if left untreated.