"Poor nurse care for my wife"

My wife started "treatment" with your hospital in May 2014. Whilst much delay can be explained by her condition I have complained before (Mid June) with absolutely no response having been received to date. Perhaps I should have waited longer? I am sure that the CQC would have something to say on this and your monthly Board Meetings patient sections are in my opinion a complete waste of time to what you're actually doing.

My wife had a 5 hour GI operation recently. Mr Ramalingam and his team of surgical staff could not have been better, he phoned me with details of the operation and his Registrar came to the ward bedside and summarised what was to happen. We thank them all for their activities and feedback.

However, the nursing care since she went to a ward (Kings A2) has been in my view appalling. The notes file at the bed indicated another bed number when I visited. My wife indicated people were looking at the wrong records. What is wrong here?

Things culminated with her ringing me (very upset) to say that (a) following a colorectal procedure the nurse was demanding to inject Clexane into her abdomen (had she any idea of the procedure the patient had had? ) when it could have been injected into her thigh (b) that she could not get pain relief in the form of Tramadol rather than paracetamol which had proved ineffective at controlling the pain (She got 1000mg when I was there). When I was there I witnessed a nurse who thought she was on PAC rather than on a metered.

After a phone call from my wife I rang and demanded that the Clexane was injected to the thigh and that Tramadol should be given (It had been written up by Dr) and was told that the nurse was a temporary and did not know that Clexane could be given in the thigh (Is this incompetence or not? ) and the Tramodol had to be written up as a CD drug (as an MHRA responsible person I know it is a CD(3) preparation) and this was just delaying things. In my opinion a completely unnecessary delay on the hospital's part. If a Dr orders things and signs dose, frequency, etc. then surely the patient gets them? Or is it the nurses / pharmacists rule OK?

She got the drugs sometime around 2330 but why did we have this exchange? Would she have got them if I had not rung? I suspect NO is the answer.

Anyway Tramadol is a CD(3) drug and all the paperwork does not apply in a hospital.

Can you possibly assure me that things will improve after this catastrophic start within 6 hours of arriving from the theatre?

This feels like an appalling situation when you are under review.

I really dread the fact that my wife has to endure 5-7 days as an inpatient with your Trust.