"Poor Administrative and Management at Hairmyres"

An elderly relative was stricken with serious condition over a year ago. The hospital gave him scans and tests, but then seem to lose his records with the result that no action was taken for 10 weeks. When my relative was finally called to the hospital the results of the previous tests had been lost and he had to undergo the test and scans again. Eventually he was treated but only after 10 weeks of being left on his own to cope with a serious illness.

A year later he was suffering with breathing problems and had to be admitted as an emergency to the hospital were he was kept for 2 weeks, during this time his breathing did improve, but for the 2 weeks he was in hospital he was moved from ward to ward with minimal communcation about his condition. During his time in hospital he had to undergo various tests and scans but it was only 2 days before he was discharged that he was told he had some suspicious symptoms that might be cancer. On discharge he was asked to come back for more tests which are by there nature invasive and uncomfortable.

A couple of weeks after the tests he went to the hospital to get the results. He was naturally very apprehensive because staff had intimated that his symptoms were probably cancer. When he gets called in to see the doctor, who is completely new to the case, he is asked if he is Ok. The doctor treated the appointment as a check up from his previous illness of 12 months before. They had no record of his recent stay in hospital and ony a very limited results from his recent tests. When the situation was explained the doctor looked around and finally declared that the results must be in some secured area of the computer to which she didn't have access.

The limited results available to the doctor suggested there was no cancer but that she would organise a review of my relatives case within a few days. A few days later my relative was asked to come back for exactly the same set of invasive tests that he had been submitted to some 3 weeks previously. As my relatives GP said, "they have probably lost the test results. Why can't they just be honest instead of making up stories?" The hospital seems to be incapable of managing the most basic of hospital administrative tasks namely to maintain accurate patient records or to keep patients fully informed of their condition. The result is that my elderly relatives have been subject to unneccessary uncertainty and anxiety by a hospital who first instinct is to cover up its mistakes and not to learn from them.