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Care Opinion

Excellence of NHS Scotland

Posted By Scarecrow

"Excellence of NHS Scotland"

About: Borders General Hospital / Accident & Emergency Borders General Hospital / General Surgery (Ward 7) Borders General Hospital / Haematology Borders General Hospital / Medical Oncology Borders General Hospital / Radiology Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France / Clinical haematology St George's Hospital (Tooting) (London) Western General Hospital / Haematology Western General Hospital / Intensive Care

(as the patient),

My relapsed Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma was diagnosed, as fate would have it, the week we moved from London to the Scottish Borders. Since then the swift efficiency, the excellence of communication and the outstanding expertise, care and resources provided by NHS Scotland have been amazing:

• My new GP surgery in Chirnside forwarded my information to the Borders General Hospital on the day of receipt. The following day the hospital telephoned to ask me to come in that week. At this first appointment the fine needle biopsy was done and preparations were made for the excisional biopsy.

• Following this chemotherapy was arranged, followed by stem cell collection at the Royal Infirmary and chemo and transplant in the Western Hospital in Edinburgh. The expertise and care of Dr Jones at the BGH, of Dr Scott and her team in Unit 8 and the Head of Intensive Care and his team at the Western was outstanding.

• The consistently excellent communication, supported by swift and efficient administration in all three Scottish hospitals is in direct contrast to St George’s Tooting, where: no reports of scans etc or notes were available on the computer system for doctors to read, my hard copy file was lost and never found or replaced, mailings were second class post and arrived after appointment times, phone calls were not made for appointments, my phone messages were ignored by the hospital, bizarrely a letter was sent asking me to attend at 7am for an operation and on arrival it was found that I was not on the surgeon’s list; the chief executive did not reply to my letters listing ten points of system failure in which a more frail or vulnerable patient would have died (I did not use social media to which they do reply).

Thank you to the Borders General Hospital: the Nuclear Medicine department, the CAT scan dept, A&E, the general medical ward, the Macmillan Centre and its wonderful nurses, the fabulous Haematology Dept, especially Dr Jones, and the excellent surgeon and his team. Thank you to the fabulously efficient staff who organised the stem cell collection at the Royal Infirmary. A huge thank you to Dr Scott and her excellent team in Unit 8 of the Western Hospital and to the outstanding Head of Intensive Care who, with Dr Scott, saved my life. Thank you to all staff in the GP surgeries in Chirnside and Duns – your consistent efficiency, skill, expertise and kindness are incredibly impressive.

Thank you NHS Scotland for the expertise of your doctors and nurses, and for the excellence of your resources and systems.

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Responses

Response from Lynn McCallum, Medical Director, NHS Borders 6 years ago
Lynn McCallum
Medical Director,
NHS Borders

Along with the Director of Nursing, we are collectively responsible for the clinical care delivered within NHS Borders.

Submitted on 01/08/2017 at 13:56
Published on Care Opinion at 14:13

picture of Lynn McCallum

Dear Scarecrow,

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a comprehensive story of your recent experiences in NHS Scotland. I'm so sorry that you had to make use of our services so soon after your move from London but I am very glad that we were able to rapidly investigate, diagnose and treat your recurrent lymphoma.

So much of what went well in your experience appears to relate to communication and we know that speaking to each other as staff members but most importantly, speaking to our patients is absolutely key in good health care outcomes. It is so important that people are involved in decisions around their health and certainly in NHS Borders, we strive to involve patients as much as we possibly can.

I cannot tell you how incredibly valuable your feedback is to all of the professionals involved in your care and how hearing a story like yours, raises morale and well being amongst those who strive to make people better on a daily basis. I will ensure that your kind words are forwarded to our haematology team in the BGH and also to the team at Chirnside Medical Practice.

I very much hope that you are now at home and recovering and that you can begin to enjoy our beautiful Scottish Borders countryside.

Best wishes,

Lynn

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Response from Jeannette Morrison, Head of Patient Experience, NHS Lothian 6 years ago
Jeannette Morrison
Head of Patient Experience,
NHS Lothian

Submitted on 01/08/2017 at 16:39
Published on Care Opinion at 18:01

Dear Scarecrow

As Lynn says, thank you so much for sharing your feedback with us, it sounds as though you have had quite a journey since moving to Scotland.

I was pleased to read how the staff between the Borders, the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the Western General Hospital have been able to work together and with you and your family to make your treatment come together as efficiently, in good time and as smoothly as possible.

I have shared your lovely feedback with the teams in both hospitals and I am sure they will be delighted to read your kind words.

I do hope that you are well on the road to recovery and enjoying the lovely countryside of the Borders or even the bright city lights of Edinburgh!

Thank you again and best wishes.

Jeannette

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Response from St George's Hospital (Tooting) 6 years ago
St George's Hospital (Tooting)

Submitted on 04/08/2017 at 17:02
Published on nhs.uk at 18:33

Thank you for taking your time to comment on your experience and we are sorry that your experience of St George's was so poor. It is not acceptable if you have not received a response to letters you have sent and we ask that you resend these to complaints@stgeorges.nhs.uk.

Please indicate when you sent the letters initially so that we can try to investigate what happened to them.

Once again thank you for your comments and we would welcome the opportunity to respond personally.

With kind regards

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Update posted by Scarecrow (the patient)

Dear St Georges - Regretfully it is typical that your response is unsigned. Also, regretfully, the 'response' to my first letter to the Chief Executive was a leaflet sent to me about how to complain. The CEO's secretary did not even acknowledge my letter.

The second letter sent to the CEO was passed to somebody who recommended a meeting with a representative of the nursing team - bizarre as the nurses, like the doctors were wonderful and I applauded them in my letters.

The point of my letters was that patients and doctors and nurses struggled in systems of administrative chaos. The inability of the CEO to not only fail to acknowledge my letters but to pass them to totally inappropriate departments reinforces - three times - the points originally made.

Kind regards, Scarecrow

Response from Sarah Duncan, Patient Experience Manager, St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 6 years ago
Sarah Duncan
Patient Experience Manager,
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 11/08/2017 at 11:08
Published on Care Opinion at 11:11

Dear Scarecrow

Please can you contact me directly so that I can look into these issues which are most concerning.

Many thanks,

Sarah Duncan

Patient Experience Manager

sarah.duncan@stgeorges.nhs.uk

020 8725 2945

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