"Once again my 76 year old mother ..."

What I liked

Once again my 76 year old mother had the misfortune of being urgently admitted to the Medway Maritime. On 30th January she was sent to the Emergency Department by her GP, arriving by ambulance at 11am. The staff in the ED were great - however, it was the usual cycle of having numerous tests carried out and then waiting for the results in between each test, and then further waiting for a consultant to become available to check the results.

At 5pm she was moved into what my father called 'a holding area' to wait to be transferred to the Medical Assessment Unit, where she was told they would decide whether she could go home. Two hours later at 7pm she was transferred to the Medical Assessment Unit - however despite being at the hospital since 11am, she was then a new patient to the MAU and therefore had to take her place in the queue. At 5am she was woken to have yet another x-ray on the same area that was x-rayed upon arrival at the hospital some 18 hours previous. She was then transferred to the Kingfisher Ward.

Unfortunately, during the transfer ALL her medication was 'lost' (which included the new antibiotics given to her in the ED plus the medication she brought from home).

It transpired that my mother was extremely anaemic and required a blood transfusion which was carried out that evening. My mother was on the Kingfisher ward until discharge at 7pm on 1st February and taken home by ambulance.

What could be improved

Once again - REMOVE THE MEDICAL ASSESSMENT UNIT - or at least have a complete radical overhaul of the systems and processess it uses and employ more staff to work on this unit.

Remind ALL staff that they should treat elderly patients as if they were their own mother or father.