"No bed available"

Dear Anonymous – I am sorry to hear of your poor experiences. I do sympathise with you and appreciate the distress and frustration that results from any cancellation, whether this is an outpatients appointment or for elective surgery. It is for this reason that cancellations are only ever undertaken as a very last resort and that it took so long to advise you of the final decision to cancel. The staff will have been doing their upmost to try and create sufficient capacity to offer you a bed and proceed with your surgery. Regrettably as North Bristol is an Acute Trust, we receive many emergency cases every day. On rare occasions demands for beds exceed our capacity to discharge patients, accept emergency patients and perform elective surgery. Capacity planning is an on-going process and constantly subject to refinement depending on many factors. We aim to offer the maximum beds for elective surgery admissions whilst leaving sufficient capacity for emergency admissions. It is for this reason we can never guarantee that patients will not be cancelled, although as stated this is always a decision of last resort. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to provide your feedback. I hope that you will now have received a new date for your surgery and that this proceeds without problem. Kind Regards – Steve Sykes Advice and Complaints Team