"Totally disorganised"

My husband recently had a procedure because of an AAA. He is hemiplegic so requires assistance in moving around and undertaking general tasks.

We had so many appointments for different test pre op both at LGI and St James, this involved a round trip of 30miles for us. It was near impossible to find disabled parking places and when I did I had to push my husband in a wheelchair from one end of the hospital to the other. I am 70years old with arthritis and by the time we reached the ward I was ready to collapse and quite distressed. We eventually ended up getting someone else to drop us at the hospital and collect us back latter.

We lost count of the number of people who spoke to us about the procedure and all seemed to say slightly different things. It was only on the day of the procedure that anyone mentioned that it was not a permanent fix and could possibly fail after about 8 years. ON one of the meetings we asked if he would need to be still monitored and were told no it was good for life.

On the day of the procedure we were able to get a parking space and a porter to push him to the ward although we had to wait about 20 minutes for one to arrive.

We were taken to the ward and were told he was going down to theatre shortly, but this did not happen. Eventually I left him after about three and a half hours. He was taken to theatre soon after I left, but was put in a side room so that he could be taken in once the theatre was ready. This did not happen another a different patient was taken in, they had forgotten he was there.

I had been promised someone would ring me as soon as he was out of theatre but this did not happen. I started ringing up about 3pm to be told he was still in theatre. I kept ringing to be told the same thing. Eventually my daughter took me to the hospital to find out what was happening.

He had come back from surgery but was in a different ward to that he was in pre op., however all his belongings, including his walking stick were still at the other ward. Someone was supposed to be fetching them , but this was not happening.

My daughter went to try to fetch them but found the ward was locked, so she came back. We were then told that she could gain access via the next door ward, so she duly fetched them.

By this time visiting had finished, so after getting his pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers out, we left, presuming the nursing staff would help into them, a task he cannot do unaided. This did not happen despite there being loads of staff on the ward all standing around chatting.

Latter that evening my husband was sick and the staff failed to clean him up or help him to get to a bathroom so he could do it himself. He ended up cleaning himself as best as possible with his pyjama bottoms which were still laying on the top of the bed.

No wonder the NHS is short of money!