"Level of care was very poor, was not seen by a..."

What I liked

Previously my mum has had very good care in this hospital having had several operations and rounds of treatment for skin cancer. Unfortunately on this occasion I was left very angry at the quality of care she was given.

What could be improved

My mother is a frequent visitor to this hospital as he has skin cancer and has had several operations and courses of treatment. She had a bad reaction to a drug she was given which resulted in an awful rash breaking out over her entire body. She was being treated on the oncology ward, which is not on the drop down list of departments for a start which is surprising.

It seemed to me like she has received a very basic level of care and no one went to any sort of effort to help her. she was in pain in the night and asked a nurse for some pain relief, the nurse begrudgingly replied saying that all she could offer was paracetamol, which is all my mum was expecting anyway, the nurse never brought her the paracetamol and so she was in pain all night. She was not seen by a doctor for four days and was just left in her bed with no one checking up on her. I asked the nurse on 2 consecutive days to get someone to come and have a look at her hugely swollen feet, ankles, and hands and no one came. It took them two days to even bring her a basic cream prescription to apply! I was shocked at the very basic level of care she was given, after six days of being in hospital and only being seen by a doctor on the first two days, she discharged herself because quite simply no one had done anything for her. As a high risk level cancer patient I cannot believe she was simply left to her own devices for so long with very basic requests such as pain relief and a visit from a doctor being ignored.

Additionally there was a lady in the opposite bed who had clearly been given some bad news and she was pretty much crying, distressed and on the phone to her family constantly for several days. It was very unfair to my mum and the other 2 lady's in the room that they had to put up with this, thank goodness my mum was mobile and could go for a walk, the others weren't. A patient in that much distress should be in her own room. I felt this was very unfair and insensitive.