"Safe, capable, competent and caring hands."

Thank you to Deerleap ward, Lymington New Forest Hospital for your care for our mother during her recent admission to you.

During the turmoil of hospital stays it is sometimes difficult to organise one’s thoughts coherently about the experience of care during a hospital admission, so I have borrowed the standards and 5 key questions from the Care Quality Commission to provide structure in this feedback to you.

The Care Quality Commission describes the fundamental standards (of person-centred care, dignity and respect, consent, safety, safeguarding from abuse, food and drink, premises and equipment, complaints, good governance, staffing, fit and proper staff, duty of candour) from which care must never fall.

As a family, every day we saw in abundance those standards in action not only to our mother but also to other patients and family members in our ward bay. 

Standards and policy are often in danger of becoming meaningless tick boxes or mantras; however, what we experienced was an attitude and approach to care that intrinsically displayed the fundamental standards. In other words – standards translated into behaviour and actions. Did we feel safe? Yes. Did the care seem effective? Yes. Did Mum feel cared for? Yes. Were individual staff members and the service responsive to Mum’s needs? Yes. Did the service seem well led? Yes. 

So, thank you all for assessing, managing, seeing and caring for Mum as a person rather than an elderly woman living with Alzheimer’s. Thank you for recognising that whilst Mental Capacity may fluctuate it does not take away the possibility of her making informed choices.

Thank you to the physiotherapy and occupational therapy team for their close attention to her needs in hospital, at home and making rehabilitation an opportunity rather than the failure of her body. Thank you to the medical team for wise assessment, respecting her wishes not to have life sustaining treatment or resuscitation but assessing and relieving reversible symptoms. Thank you to the nursing team for caring for her in the way that I would do and making her not feel a burden.

Thank you for all the daily checks made on ward equipment, it felt safe and efficient. Thank you to the housekeeping team for keeping the ward spotless and for the friendly banter when everyday tasks were carried out. Thank you all for remembering Mum’s name and her preferences when tea or meals was brought round, or the library and sweet trolley visited. Thank you to hospital radio for not raising an eyebrow at her radio choices.

Thank you to everyone from the ward clerk, pharmacist, new shift nurses or different members of the team for always introducing themselves to Mum and telling her what they were doing, even if it was for a seemingly trivial task such as checking her drugs in her locked cabinet or bringing her a letter. 

What did this all mean for Mum? It meant that she felt she was being cared for, by people who knew what they were doing and cared about what they did.  

Surely that is all that we want when we are feeling vulnerable, unwell and uncertain as a patient, or as a family when we go through those ward doors, down the stairs and out into the car park – to feel that someone that we love is in safe, capable, competent and caring hands.