"Inadequate inpatient care"

Our dad has chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), atrial fibrillation and, after a stroke in March 2020, was admitted to Wishaw General Hospital. His care during this stay was good and we understood why rehabilitation at home was not offered due to the pandemic and the requirement to shield.

His leukaemia care team at Wishaw General have been honest and compassionate and this includes the consultants and haematology/oncology nurses who are always readily available for support and advice.

However, we now have some major concerns about dad’s most recent treatment from late December 2020 to mid January 2021. His care on ward 6 of Wishaw General Hospital was at best vague and at worst negligent.

Towards the end of December, after a deterioration in dad’s strength and drop in blood pressure, he was taken by ambulance to Wishaw General and though we have no complaint about the care of the ambulance crews, my dad waited for 4.5 hours on the floor for the ambulance to arrive. This highlights a serious inadequacy in emergency response. He was diagnosed as having pneumonia, low blood pressure and was put into a shielding room. We trusted that dad would be subject to enhanced protocols during his stay due to his vulnerability. Dad’s stay was 16 days of near isolation with little support or compassion from the nursing staff and our dad was left alone even when ringing the bell for assistance with drinking water or going to the toilet. This left him in a position where his dignity was compromised daily – often resulting in dad calling home to us and having us call the hospital to ask for these basic human rights to be met.

Information about scans/ tests were not shared with us in a timely manner and in some instances my mum was told when calling that no one ‘had the time to look’ – I feel this is appalling.

Then, one day early January we were informed that dad had contracted covid in hospital after showing a raised temperature. Devastating, and it transpired dad had been placed in a covid ward despite testing negative on arrival.

Dad remained largely asymptomatic, but had to remain in hospital for a 10 day period to isolate. We were told he was tested on the Saturday so would be discharged 10 days later on the Tuesday. At the time of his test the results were not returned until 4 days later and when we queried the length of time these results took, our mum was told it had been due to a bank holiday. This was untrue. We have since found out, during emergency care from a medical professional, that the test dad had on the Saturday suffered a technical fault so he was retested two days later on the Monday. This means that dad should have remained in hospital 10 days from the Monday, not the Saturday. This put our mum at risk as she suffers from severe asthma and as dads sole carer it would have devastating implications for both of them should she contract covid.

Mum was told that dad was ‘past the infectious stage’ but that she should wear a mask around my dad for 2-3 days when giving close care and to sleep separately. This seems a contradiction, and one that both our parents questioned, but again they were told that it ‘should’ be fine.

Dad was discharged and his appearance and mental state were quite simply heart-breaking. He felt he had been left to die, he felt that the nurses thought nothing more of him than an infirm old man. He was desperately underweight after receiving no support or intervention to help him eat, he returned to our care in a worse condition physically and mentally than he was when he went in.

5 days later after discharge dad appeared to deteriorate rapidly with a temperature and collapsing episodes when trying to stand. We were blessed with a compassionate and thorough paramedic. He called the out of hours doctor to try and get antibiotics for dad suspecting there was an infection taking root. The out of hours doctor looked at dad’s file and as there were no discharge papers from Wishaw, 5 days after he left, they could not prescribe anything as they did not have up to date information on his most recent treatment and condition. There is no record of him having covid. We feel we have been lied to and that covid cases are being under reported from a hospital that, by the admission of a consultant, has 'covid in every ward’.

As a family we are realistic about dad’s prognosis and have spent much of 2020 processing each step in his treatment. We also understand these are unprecedented times and that the NHS is under strain. However, our dad is 74 and we feel he has a chance at a period of improved health and more time with us given he receives the right care.

Our questions to you:

1.) Why was dad placed in such a vulnerable position in a ward where covid was known to be so prevalent given his highly serious medical conditions?

2.) Why was dad released into mums care before his 10 day isolation period was officially over?

3.) Why were we misinformed about the reason for the covid test taking so long and about the official date of the positive result?

4.) Why have dads discharge papers still not been comprehensively filled in or shared? Other health professionals including the paramedic, out of hours doctor, community physio and local GP have all found this to be significantly below standard.

There have been positive aspects of my dad’s care as an outpatient attending Wishaw but we have been left jaded and untrusting of dad receiving any further inpatient care at Wishaw. On the advice of multiple healthcare professionals we feel it is important to highlight this catalogue of failings.