Just had the following experience of the NHS - including the 'new' 111 service:
Mother-in-law, aged 92, was hospitalised in April after suffering a mild stroke, she was also diagnosed with the early onset of Dementia (She also has very low kidney function). She was discharged after a few weeks and was given a care plan that ensured someone came in each morning to get her up, washed and dressed, given her breakfast and to make sure she took her tablets. This ceased after a while and she became more or less self-sufficient with help from family members (Son and Daughter (my wife)).
When we returned from our last holiday (October) we were told that she had been admitted to hospital after suffering a mild heart attack. She then started with a cold whilst in hospital and she was released after 10 days being told that she would be better at home. She was collected by her son with a pack of tablets but without any care plan (despite being told that she would receive care in the short term).
We, as a family, continued to look after her during the day, but, after a week her cold was getting steadily worse. A doctor came out to see her and she was diagnosed with a chest infection and prescribed anti-biotics. The doctor told us to call '111' if she didn't improve in 48 hours, she was worse after 48 hours and we called 111 and requested a visit by the on-call doctor. He arrived after 7 hours and prescribed a different anti-biotic, which I took to the chemist.
After a further 48 hours she was by this time far worse and she was now receiving 24/7 care from family as she was becoming weak from a total lack of sleep and the inability to eat (and what she did eat soon came back up!). Her coughing bouts were coming at intervals of 15-20 seconds and she looked bloody awful!
We rang the Careline alarm who passed the call to the 111 service, who called us back after ¾ hour - after a lot of questioning she told us that perhaps we should call a doctor out to prescribe different anti-biotics, we said we wanted her to go into hospital (by this time she was too weak to even stand). They told us it would be between a 1 and 4 hour wait for an ambulance.
At this point I called 999 and a paramedic came within 5 minutes and, after examining her called for an ambulance as a 'hot one'. The ambulance came within a few minutes and she was soon in A&E where she was immediately given a nebuliser, had blood tests taken and given a chest X-ray. Even at this stage they said it all depended on the blood test results whether she would be admitted or not.
After all this they found that she had fluid in one lung and an infection in the other!!! She is now in the EMU ward waiting for a doctor to see her.
My gripe in all this is: I thought the NHS, including its' subsidiary services (eg the 111 sysytem) were care driven - it seems to me that it is either finance or target driven, or this is the way it seems to be to us, as surely this is no way to treat an elderly person.
As an aside, before she was admitted my wife was trying to arrange some care to help us and the chap at Social Services was appalled that she had been discharge after the heart attack with no help from them. He has now told us to tell a nurse that she needs a full review from the social work team before she is discharged.
OK rant over!
Topic: NHS Services? (Read 12362 times)
