"Palliative and End of Life Care"

Following a family conversation over Christmas we feel it is important for GGC Health Board to know of our variance in care our mother received from when she was diagnosed with heart failure and subsequently died in March 2024.

We must firstly commend all the staff at cardiology out patients at Stobhill and also the heart failure nurses and the hear failure consultant nurse for keeping mum as well as she could be during her illness, which was over many years. Their care was second to none and Mum felt safe in their hands.

Our main concern began when she was taken to GRI by ambulance as she was acutely unwell.This resulted in a 7 hour wait in a wheelchair in a draughty corridor of A&E without an assessment, food, drinks or her medication. The family had to see to her needs and take her to the toilet which was upsetting for the male family member and Mum. After she was assessed there seemed to be a recognition of how poorly she was and she was then very quickly she was admitted to a ward 43. This is where the nightmare began which has affected our family terribly.

For the next 5 days mum continued to become more and more unwell. she was increasingly confused, distressed and in pain but no-one seemed to care. No one came to assess her or to provide medication in a timely way. One night this resulted in her being able to remove her IV and catheter, to get out of bed and be able to wander in the ward with little clothing on. We only found this out when a staff member the next night asked if she was OK after her incident. 

We asked many question about why different symptoms, confusion and distress seemed to be escalating with no answers. We could wait at the nurses station for extend periods of time and be ignored while nurses around us wrote up notes. When someone did eventually acknowledge we were there they would be quickly dismissed us with sayings like 'I don't know or I'll try and find out'. No one ever came back to us later and as such the answers were never given to any of our questions. There was no conversation initiated around power of attorney and we believe some interventions were not in mum's best interests.

It was only 6 days after her admission (following 4 days of distress and agony) that the palliative care team came to see mum. They approached us with care, compassion and competence. It was like someone had turned a switch on: medication was given in a timely way by the ward nurses and we were given proper information by the palliative care team.However even in the last few days of mum's life there remained a coldness and indifference from the ward nurses. No compassion, no empathy and indeed the ward nurses provided us with incorrect information around care and medication at different times.

The last 4 days of Mum's life were peaceful and she died with us around her.

We have to finish by saying that we had a number of excellent support workers who looked after Mum during this time in ward 43. We also have to thanks a staff nurse from another department who was helping out for a day. She attended to Mum in such and understanding way and was proactive in finding out what why she was distressed and then contacting the medical team for a review at the weekend. We are sure it was her input that led to the palliative care team being involved. We often wonder what would have happened to Mum if this nurse had not been on shift that day.