"My story about Rotherham hospital"

In December 2011, I went in to hospital with cellulitis. I was put on IVs, also got moved to another ward but when I got released from the other ward no one was telling me to deal with the sister or ward manager on that ward – I didn’t know because I’ve not been in hospital in my life.

Then on Saturday I was released in to the care of the nurse at home who was very good. Then Saturday night my body was shaking so the nurse asked me if I wanted them to call an ambulance. I told them I would go back up to the hospital the next day.

A nurse who was very good took my blood for test but with it being Sunday my blood results did not come back until Monday and the doctor on Sunday said there is nothing wrong with me so they were sending me home. They said that it would be a waste of money and time being kept in so suggest I got a taxi home and a taxi back on Monday morning. This made me feel bad. I think if the blood test was done there and then which would take an hour for result and a few days for the blood count to be done so the doctor would have know that I had blood poisoning. I had a spectrometer for two days before it was picked up but also the other problem was that I did not have a rash or anything else and I was walking around the hospital like nothing was wrong. I was told a few days later that I should have been in ITC unit.

I was admitted to the ward on Monday to change my IV and then to check on me - got told I could go home later that day but at end of Monday I was moved to another ward. I felt down because nobody came to me and the team couldn’t take over treatment at home because the IV was going too long.

If the nurse or doctor hadn’t come to me and said this there would have been no problem and when I moved up to another ward the nurse asked me if I minded stopping in over night because no one had told them what was going on. He couldn’t tell me what was happening so I could not sleep - I was more stressed with no one telling me, I felt like more of a number than a person.

When staff go off shift, treatment should be able to carry on and everyone should know what is happening.

I think the doctors and nurse should play the role of a patient and know what it is like. I got told I need a scan on my arm on one ward but this would probably take a couple of days to do so I wasn’t allowed to go home until they’d done the scan but day before I was just about to be taken down for the scan and the doctor said he doesn’t need this which was fine but it cheesed me off.

I got put in the PIU but could go home at night then go back next day but was very unwell so I got readmitted to hospital. I asked the nurse what is wrong with me and what can they do to fix me but they said they did not know but they could not even get a doctor until next day. The doctor did not spend long with me so I could not ask what they were going to.

Some times you just want to go in to a room and have some time to get your head straight and I think also there should be a room as sometimes you want to tell the doctor or nurse something without other people being unable to hear you speak.

I also think there should be a big notice to say you can arrange for books to be brought to your ward because a lot of people didn’t know this.

I felt sick at one point so I pressed my buzzer and thought the two assistant nurses would have answered and brought a sick bowl but they carried on casually behind the desk so the nurse had to stop doing the medicine and get me a sick bowl. I think the senior nurse should have been able to carry on with doing medicine and the other staff could have helped me. If they had made a mistake with medication it could be really serious.

Lastly, when the food list comes round I think there should be a pen so you can write what you want because some patients come in by ambulance or by A&E and so you do not have a pen with you sometimes.