"My child's poor medical treatment and lack of communication"

As an NHS employee it causes me great concern to write about my child's experience thus far with the NHS.

 I contacted my GP in September as my child had been complaining of stomach pain for a week, along with cold like symptoms. Over the phone my GP informed of his clinical decision that it may be constipation and I could try using a laxative. Soon afterwards my child was in severe pain and had started vomiting so I took them to the GP stating that I thought they were impacted and was told they most definitely were not and was given buscopan.

My child's pain continued to increase to the point it was unbearable and we considered that their appendix was about to burst.  My husband therefore rushed them to childrens A&E at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital who decided that it was gastroenteritis and advised that we stop the laxido and treat as such. We therefore followed this advice. Fast forward a few days and my child is unable to keep down any liquid or food and is trying to knock themselves out by banging their head off the wall as their pain is constant and intolerable.

Following a lengthy wait on the phone to NHS24 I am told someone will contact me within 4 hours. My child is in agony so instead I rush them to A&E again and inform them that I am certain there is something impacting their bowel and I want an x-ray. I am told that this is harmful and will not be done and we should return home with laxido which they can not keep down. An hour later while waiting for said prescription my child collapses in the bathroom from the pain and is trying to knock themselves out on the floor whilst screaming in agony. Suddenly we are allowed an x-ray – they are impacted – very impacted – horrific administration of a COVID test and an enema later I take my exhausted child home to start the next horrific process following the ERIC guidelines for a disimpaction process.

A month later whilst still monitoring daily bowel movements in a diary – my child taking their Laxido as recommended in the guidelines and we end up going through the whole process again – go to the GP – definitely not impacted – again prescribed buscopan and tells us they needs a break from laxatives. I ignore this and carry on with the process as per the ERIC guidelines as I've lost all faith in my GP and return to A&E with my child screaming and yes they are impacted again. However, despite being diagnosed sooner this experience was worse.

1.I continually asked how can they be impacted when they are on a maintenance dose of laxido and is having a "number 4" bowel movement every day (which I had seen and they also had done whilst in the hospital). I was never answered? I still do not know? Instead the repeated statement was – you need to take your laxative – spoken to my child who is completely confused as they have been taking it

2.We were left with my child in absolute agony for hours. We then saw a nurse who gave them some colouring-in while they climbed the walls in pain and then left again for hours. In the meantime I am running up and down the Clinical Decisions Unit asking for a doctor. Finally saw a doctor decided on an enema – nurse gave this not very well in my opinion.  It didn’t work – another few hours drinking laxido to then vomit it up – hours again before we saw a doctor who decided on a second enema which was as useless as the first – then no one for hours by this point we didn’t even have any water left.  Fortunately following on from my first experience I brought my own calpol. Hours later we were then given laxido again and fortunately they was able to keep this down and we exited the moment we could

3.Since then I have been trying to contact the hospital for my child's blood results as no one has contacted me or my GP and I still do not know the results of their thyroid test

4.I finally got through to a lovely secretary who informed me that despite my assurance from the several different consultants I saw that my child would be referred to a pediatric consultant at the clinic, that a ‘constipation nurse’ will be calling me.  I still do not understand how they ended up impacted when still having a daily bowel movement and laxative.  I have not yet received a letter about this and I am fairly certain this will not answer my question as to how they ended up impacted.

5.Just to demonstrate how poor the communication was, my child was not given a Covid test before going to CDU.  Despite being there from 8am in the morning they had not eaten we were not given dinner, the water was not refreshed (there was nowhere for me to do this myself), and despite asking for pain relief this was never given at any point. We left at 10:30pm

I am appalled by the experience and do not think I can express how damaging this has been to my faith in my colleagues or the NHS journey. I will hesitate to take my children to A&E in future and certainly plan on changing GP surgery.

My child is as usual following the treatment plan I have looked up and followed via the ERIC website to the letter. But they continue to suffer stomach pain and now worries about whether they will need to return to hospital. I worry that there may be something more serious going on for them such as an obstruction to their bowel and have little faith that anyone has actually properly checked this.