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Waste of time

Story from nhs.uk

"Waste of time"

About: Doncaster Royal Infirmary

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I have been referred to DRI for a tonsillectomy. I attended the hospital on the 5th feb 2013 to have the operation. After arranging two weeks annual leave because I can not afford to go off work sick, my partner also putting in annual leave to care for me once back home, paying £5.00 on parking for the day, being up at 5:30 to attend my appointment which I had fasted for to then be told at 10:00am that day that my appointment had been cancelled. I had already spoken to the nurse, consultant, anesthetist pre operativley and received my pre-op medication to then be told I wasn't going to have the operation that day due to there being no beds. I appreciate there are poorly people in hospital that cannot be sent home and I also appreciate that the transferring of patients is not the preferred thing. So I then was scheduled in for another operation date on the 2nd April 2013 which I had put two weeks annual leave in for, to then find out at 10:00am again that the operation had yet again been cancelled due to there being no beds available. As I have said I understand that there are ill patients and professionals have to priorities care accordingly. But I would just like to put my point across that the system for elective operations simply is not working and needs to be improved. I have now lost one months worth of annual leave and now I am going to lose another two weeks of my annual leave to enable me to have the operation. I like to go abroad when I use my annual leave. However due to the failure of the system I have got to face the consequences of not being able to go on holiday this year. Very disappointed. I really hope my next operation date on the 11th April 2013 does not end up the same way as I shall definitely never be attending this hospital again.

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Responses

Response from Doncaster Royal Infirmary 11 years ago
Doncaster Royal Infirmary

Submitted on 05/04/2013 at 17:39
Published on nhs.uk on 06/01/2014 at 08:30

Please accept our sincere apologies for this. We can totally understand how frustrating this must have been for you. We do everything we can to avoid cancelling elective (i.e. non-emergency) operations at short notice. However, this winter has been particularly difficult, with extremely high volumes of emergency patients who have needed to be admitted to hospital because they are so unwell. Unfortunately, this has had knock-on consequences for patients like you who were due to be admitted for planned surgery. We are looking at ways of adding more beds so that we can care for the increased numbers of emergency patients we've seen this winter, while also providing patients due to have planned surgery with the treatment that they need. We have contacted the department responsible for your care and they will also add to this response in the next week, but we wanted to assure you that we have noted your comments and fully accept that it is far from ideal to have your operation cancelled twice. We apologise again for that.

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful
Response from Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 11 years ago
Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 17/04/2013 at 11:52
Published on Care Opinion at 13:33

Doncaster Royal Infirmary replied on 05 April 2013

Please accept our sincere apologies for this. We can totally understand how frustrating this must have been for you. We do everything we can to avoid cancelling elective (I.e. non-emergency) operations at short notice. However, this winter has been particularly difficult, with extremely high volumes of emergency patients who have needed to be admitted to hospital because they are so unwell. Unfortunately, this has had knock-on consequences for patients like you who were due to be admitted for planned surgery. We are looking at ways of adding more beds so that we can care for the increased numbers of emergency patients we've seen this winter, while also providing patients due to have planned surgery with the treatment that they need.

We have contacted the department responsible for your care and they will also add to this response in the next week, but we wanted to assure you that we have noted your comments and fully accept that it is far from ideal to have your operation cancelled twice. We apologise again for that.

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