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Infected toe

Posted By eridanusyj46

"Infected toe"

About: Adult community health services / Podiatry

(as the patient),

I've been attending the podiatry clinic at Bridgwater Hospital for some time and have an infected toe which needs to be x-rayed. Whilst the service / care I receive from the podiatry team is very good I'm not sure why it takes so long for an x-ray to be taken. The podiatrist has written to my GP to organise the x-ray, the GP will then need to write to the hospital who will then need to contact me. Why couldn't the Podiatry team, at the hospital, just arrange this with the x-ray department. The toe is painful, I cannot wear a covered shoe and this is dragging on.

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Responses

Response from Emma Davey, Director of Patient Experience and Engagement, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust 5 years ago
Emma Davey
Director of Patient Experience and Engagement,
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 29/11/2018 at 10:30
Published on Care Opinion at 11:28

picture of Emma Davey

Hello eridanusyj46,

Thanks for taking the time to get in touch with us to tell us about your recent appointment with our Podiatry team and I'm really pleased to hear that the care you have received has been very good.

I completely understand your frustrations regarding the process for getting the x-ray you need and am really sorry that this is taking some time to sort and is affecting your daily life - leave it with me and I will find out some more information from the service manager so that we can understand better what has happened here.

I will post again when I have some further information.

Thanks again for letting us know.

Best wishes,

Emma

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Response from Emma Davey, Director of Patient Experience and Engagement, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust 5 years ago
Emma Davey
Director of Patient Experience and Engagement,
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 04/12/2018 at 09:51
Published on Care Opinion at 10:40

picture of Emma Davey


Hello again,

Further to my initial response above, I wanted to get in touch again now that I have managed to speak to Emma, the Podiatry Service Manager. Emma also expressed her apology that this has been a rather frustrating process for you and explained the following:

Unfortunately the Podiatry service is not commissioned to order x-rays. That means that we have to pass this request onto someone else in the health service who can do this. In this case, it was your GP. Normally this would mean a phone call or a letter to your GP, who would then put the request in to the x-ray (Radiography) service, who would then send you a letter via the ‘Choose and Book’ system. You would then call the number and arrange the x-ray at a time that was convenient to you.

I appreciate that this does seem a bit frustrating. We would hope that this wouldn’t take very long to arrange, so if you have still not heard, we would recommend that you call your GP as soon as possible and make sure that the request for the x-ray has been received and put through by your GP. If you are a feeling poorly with your toe, please speak to your GP directly as you may need some more urgent treatment.

I am sorry that this process has been so difficult. We will make sure that this issue is raised and discussed within our directorate meetings to identify any other issues as this is normally a seamless and swift process and we are keen to make sure that it is as easy as possible for service users.

Thank you again for taking the time to bring this to our attention and explain how the process felt for you.

Kind regards,

Emma

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