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Concerns about my step daughter's care

Posted By Gladin

"Concerns about my step daughter's care"

About: Lincoln County Hospital / General surgery

(as a parent/guardian),

My step daughter is currently in Lincoln County Hospital and has been located on a surgical admissions ward, that is being used as an overflow.

The nurses are friendly but that's about the only positive point to her stay. The food can only be described as disgusting and inadequate. For two days she got nothing but sandwiches and has just sent us a picture of her dinner tonight. This meal looks totally inedible and to be quite honest I wouldn't ask my dog to eat it.

How are ULHT supposed to promote recovery when the nutritional value of the meals they give patients wouldn't be sufficient for the average hamster?

Above the appalling food she was going to be discharged yesterday, even though no diagnosis had been made (as they needed to clear the beds). After asking for a second doctor's opinion, it now turns out there are issues with her kidneys. If she had gone home and any issue escalated this undiagnosed problem would only get worse.

This behaviour of putting economics above patient care and welfare is a disgrace. How many other people have been sent home with undiagnosed problems? Surely this cannot be policy or procedure. If it is, can a copy of the 'we don't care about our patients' policy be provided to me?

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Responses

Response from Jennie Negus, Head of Patient Experience, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust 11 years ago
Jennie Negus
Head of Patient Experience,
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust

Submitted on 25/10/2012 at 09:58
Published on Care Opinion at 10:02

picture of Jennie Negus

I am really sorry to hear about your worries and concerns about your step daughter's care. I have asked a senior colleague at Lincoln County to look into the issues you have raised and hope to respond to you very soon. In the meantime, especially as we cannot identify your step daughter from your posting on Patient Opinion, if you need to speak to someone more urgently then please do not hesitate to ask the ward staff if you could speak to matron or a senior manager. I appreciate that there can be an anxiety about complaining or wanting to speak to someone senior but it is clear you are worried and it is important to us to be able to help.

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Response from Jennie Negus, Head of Patient Experience, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust 11 years ago
Jennie Negus
Head of Patient Experience,
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust

Submitted on 01/11/2012 at 14:08
Published on Care Opinion at 15:15

picture of Jennie Negus

Following up from my previous posting a senior manager has since been to the ward and reviewed the catering arrangements. You are right that this ward is not usually used for in-patients; it is a surgical admissions area - however the hospital experienced a surge in admissions and opened addition beds here to cope with the demand. Clearly this isnt ideal and we are very sorry that your experience was so poor. In relation to meal service the arrangement was for meals to be served from the neighbouring ward which has worked well in the past when there have been just a small number of additional beds open. However at the time your step-daughter was in there were about 18 patients and this arrangement meant standards fell far short of what is expected. This has, since your posting been rectified. The senior manager met with the catering service and now if patients are admitted to this area meals will be provided directly.

I appreciate that this is too late for you but I hope you can see that we have taken your concerns seriously and are committed to making improvements from hearing about patient and relative experiences.

Thank you again for telling us about your experience.

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