"The ward my mother was on (Bovey) ..."

What I liked

The ward my mother was on (Bovey) was very clean and all the nursing staff I met were very friendly and kind.

What could be improved

This really relates to my complaint which I have sent formally in writing to the hospital. There should have been structures in place to allow more co ordination between staff, there seemed to be times when no one could answer patient or relative questions simply because out side their own job they didn't know what was going on so no one had the whole picture of one particular patient.

Anything else?

Following on from this no one seemed to have overall responsibility for checking on patients' home circumstances when it was time for discharge, nor was there anyone to inform patients or their relatives of possible options for convalescence/post hospital care. To put this comment in context my mother who is ninety nine years old, very frail and registered blind lives on her own, with no relatives in the west country and had a history of three falls in the night, in the month preceeding admission, to which para medics were called.She was in your hospital for a month, with two fractures, and in all that time no one looked into her home circumstances, made reports/reccomendations etc for after care. Worse is the fact that I, her daughter, had to find out through an external source that intermediate care could be sought in a suitable residential placement. I requested that an application was made to such a place and was told this had been done. Time went on and I kept asking how the application was progressing to be repeatedly told she was "on the list". My mother was now threatening to discharge herself so the hospital informed me that she was being taken on a "home Assessment" visit to her bungalow. This visit was a sham there was no intention to assess and return her to the hospital -the transport was booked one way! In desperation I phoned the residential placement myself only to be told there were two beds available, no waiting list and no application had been made! Furthermore as no report had been done by the hospital she would need to wait until this was completed. Finally I got her to the residential placement where she recieved treatment to build up her strength in the hope that she will now have the best chance of not facing re admission as the result of another fall. How short sighted is this? The community nurse had described my mother as "a fracture waiting to happen"