"An Outstanding Hospital? Only for the wrong..."

My grandmother was taken into SRH A&E on Tuesday following a fall - this was less than 24 hours after a dithering decision to discharge her, from SRH, after a two week admission.

She had barely been home for 36 hours before being taken back in.

Communication from all staff (with the exception of one doctor who specifically asked to speak to us as a family yesterday) has been abominable!

Contradictions abound, and my grandmother is being treated like a "dotty old dear" who doesn't really know what's going on - nothing could be further from the truth.

We are a family of health care professionals, including 2 former ward managers.

I specifically made staff aware of this when she was admitted as she was spoken to like a child.

Yes she had had a fall, yes she had lost consciousness and had been disorientated following the fall, but (after the nearly 6 hour wait in A&E for a bed!) she was completely orientated to time, location and person, she was not confused.

She was simply exhausted (it was after 23:00) and wanted to go to sleep.

Since admission, she has been consistently undermined and contradicted, mostly by nursing staff.

She was told she was on bed rest, but not why (she is perfectly able to move herself and walk with a walker, which has been with her on the ward since the day after her admission).

At no point did anyone explain that it is standard practise to have a physio review before mobilising a patient after a fall - this is all she needed to be told, but she was kept in the dark.

Her walker (which we purchased for her last birthday) was moved away from her during the night and when she asked why, she was told "because it isn't yours, it's for everyone!"

When she tried to explain what had happened in the lead-up to the fall, her perception is that she was disregarded.

She feels the staff think she is a liar!

I can see from other responses that you suggest people contact PALS - please don't make that suggestion to me because I already tried that.

I went to PALS this morning and was told all that could be done was that I would be "escorted back to the ward to speak to the ward sister".

If I had got anywhere with the ward sister, I wouldn't have gone to PALS in the first place!

So now, I will return this afternoon and I will attempt to speak to the sister again.

When I get nowhere (again), I won't bother with PALS, this will go straight to being a formal complaint.

I have avoided putting in any of the clinical issues my grandmother has experienced as this would probably result in this review being rejected.