"I had a real mix of experiences following my..."

I was admitted to The Royal London in August 2018 for a liver resection for a metastasized cancer, originally in the bowel. For the most part I found the staff to be helpful and professional, some were above and beyond (Ward Sister on ward 18 for example) but there were a few notable exceptions.

Among these was a woman (unfortunately I couldn't see her name tag) doing "ward rounds". This was the days after I'd been transferred from HDU to ward 18. My regular medication (for epilepsy) had been lost in the transfer, not only the meds the hospital had got for me, but also the ones I'd brought myself from home. After chasing people all morning about it, I discussed it with her, initially I was getting responses like "we're a hospital we have a pharmacy, no problem" which then changed as someone realised the pharmacy wasn't open until 4pm! I need to take these morning and evening and am on quite a high dose so really didn't like the idea of waiting. I was annoyed with the attitude I was getting from her as I was explaining the issue. She had another doctor (I think a junior) with her and I felt I should address both of them. As I was half way through explaining she said in a quite sharp tone "Don't look at him, look at me" - I was flabbergasted. First I felt she was not really taking in the actual content of what I was saying, and secondly how does someone with such a frankly patronising,rude,unsympathetic attitude get in a position of talking to patients.

It might be worth telling people who are supposed to communicate with adult patients that a little bit of empathy wouldn't go amiss. Would she like to have been me in that position and spoken to like that?

I was also not massively impressed with the way I was discharged - I had previously had a hemi-colectomy in Whipps Cross, so comparing the two : I was not informed of several things, which I only happened to know because of my previous discharge e.g. you're supposed to keep wearing the surgical stockings until you're finished taking blood thinners. I am doing it but was not informed. My wound was not checked on the day of discharge, or anything else e.g. bloods, bp, oxygen. I was not given instructions as to what I should eat or drink (I am assuming again myself, because it was a liver op I should cut out alcohol). Also I had no idea how long my wound would take to heal. It would be quicker to say I got no information whatever, possibly I should have got a bunch of questions ready, but my brain was a bit mush from painkillers and lack of sleep at that stage!