"Lack of communication over mum's pre op"

Firstly, I wanted to pass on my thanks to my mum’s gynaecologist at Crosshouse Hospital for the expert care of my mum who had surgery there. The Dr has been wonderful and very caring yet professional whilst dealing with my mum, always taking time to explain everything to my mum and always around on the ward to check results timely and deal with anything needing dealt with. We were very impressed by the level of care received by the Dr and team in the clinical setting. The nurses in the gynaecology ward were also very caring and helpful.

However, I would like to also mention that someone from the team’s admin department has been ever so unhelpful in the lead up to my mums surgery. I had contacted them via email on a couple of occasions to which I got no replies. I wanted to check if my mum's heart condition had been picked up by pre-op and I wanted them to check with pre-op that they had looked into this. I ended up going through another member of the admin department to be told the email content had been discussed with my mum via telephone, and their colleague (from the admin dept) had said my mum was ‘fit for surgery’. No mention of whether her heart condition had been taken into account.

I was suspicious of my mum passing a pre-op assessment so quickly when she has a past medical history of heart troubles and has stents in situ for less than a year.

I decided to take advice myself from an anaesthetist, who didn't get involved themselves, but spoke to the anaesthetist who would have been anaesthetising my mum on the date given for surgery. After this, suddenly my mum's surgery was cancelled and she was told that there was a discrepancy with her pre-op about her stents, and that further investigation would need to take place to ascertain whether she could have surgery. I found out that she had been passed as fit to proceed in error and further confirmation re her stents should have been sought from the cardiologist and the Golden Jubilee Hospital where she had them done before she would be deemed fit to proceed.

We were not bothered too much about the surgery being cancelled as we knew it had to be done at the safest possible time for my mum and if she needed to wait a bit longer then so be it. My issue is with the person in the admin team not communicating with me at all and not looking into this matter like I had asked at the beginning. Had this been done in the beginning, it would have most probably been picked up and a date for surgery would not have been given to my mum until they were sure she was fit and safe to proceed. My mum was very disappointed when her surgery was cancelled and if I hadn't done anything, my mum could potentially have had a wasted journey to hospital or worse, she may have slipped through the net and been operated on without the necessary checks having taken place. Risks cannot be taken where patients with heart troubles are concerned. This member of staff should have acted upon my concerns. If this wasn’t possible, they should have contacted someone who could and at least raised the issue with the pre-op department. This member of staff also refused to tell me who had made the decision to deem my mum 'fit for surgery'. I had wanted to speak to the person myself to make sure.

I spoke to this member of staff on the telephone one day and I was advised they would need permission from my mum to be able to speak to me about her case, however on going home that evening my mum advised me that she had already been asked by this person on the telephone for this permission, to which my mum said yes. Therefore, I cannot understand why we couldn’t discuss anything. I was told I would not be given any information whatsoever and if I was unhappy about that, I'd need to speak the manager. The call then escalated to the manager. All I wanted to know was if my mum's heart condition had been highlighted and investigated. When I couldn't get this reassurance from the member of staff, I asked for the name of the anaesthetist who deemed my mum fit for surgery so that I could check with that person myself if the condition had been taken into account. I was refused this information also and they contradicted themselves about whether my mum had given permission to speak to me.

In the end I contacted pre-op myself and an ever so helpful nurse took on the case and deal with all my queries and was able to resolve matters and reassure us that my mum's case had now been properly dealt with. It turned out that my mum should not have been deemed as 'fit to proceed' in the initial pre-op assessment stage as protocol would be for patients to have passed the one year mark from having stents inserted and also assessed by a cardiologist to ensure there had been no issues with the stents in the first year after insertion.

There is a little bit more I want to add to my story but I don't want to write it publicly.

Finally, I just want to say that we have absolutely no concerns with the care given by the gynaecologist and the clinical team. They were all fantastic. However the admin team members I mention have been so unhelpful and made me feel like I was requesting information which I was not entitled to, despite having my mums permission. I feel it was bad patient care from the admin side of things and I was not reassured at all until pre-op got on the case. I was not treated like a relative and my mum suffered unnecessary worry and stress over an already daunting time ahead of her.