Care Opinion

Approximate visiting times by District nursing

Posted By Brownie

"Approximate visiting times by District nursing"

About: Bromley Healthcare / District nursing

(as a relative),

Unfortunately, in the last couple if years both of my parents and my husband have had to use district nursing services, in two different health authorities. Whilst I have nothing but praise for the service itself in that all of the staff, including admin, are friendly and efficient, it is extremely frustrating that they are unable to give an approximate time for their visits.

Even if the patient is housebound, it causes unnecessary anxiety when they are expecting some one to visit and would like to plan their day. My mother was even concerned about going to the toilet in case she missed the knock on the door! My husband was advised to have a rest during the day but did not feel relaxed enough to do that as he was waiting for his treatment.

I do realise that emergencies happen and that traveling around is unpredictable due to traffic conditions but I find it difficult to believe that it is not possible to give a two hour window. (after all, Tesco can do it! ! ). I manage a home visiting service and am able to give appointment times and therefore I know that it is possible.

I consider that the district nursing service could be immensely improved and patient satisfaction increased, if it could find a way of giving approximate visit times.

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Responses

Response from Amanda Mayo, Head of Integrated Care - Bromley ICN, Operations Directorate, Bromley Healthcare 9 years ago
Amanda Mayo
Head of Integrated Care - Bromley ICN, Operations Directorate,
Bromley Healthcare

My role is provide professional support to all nurses within Bromley Healthcare and to ensure services we provide are of the highest quality

Submitted on 12/01/2015 at 15:46
Published on Care Opinion at 16:05

picture of Amanda Mayo

Dear Brownie,

Thank you for spending the time to post your thoughts on Patient Opinion. It is views like yours that shape how we work as a dynamic healthcare provider.

Thank you for the praise you give for District Nursing teams who have a challenging job up and down the country! However, I completely understand and empathise with the points that you raise regarding timed visiting slots.

I think that this is something that Bromley Healthcare should work towards doing and I will pose this to the Team at our next meeting. When we have a sustainable system, where patients are given a rough idea of a time slot, I will return to Patient Opinion and post this to say that we have made a change.

I look forward to being able to write this post!

Kind regards

Amanda

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Response from Jonathan Lewis, CEO, Bromley Healthcare 9 years ago
Jonathan Lewis
CEO,
Bromley Healthcare

Submitted on 12/01/2015 at 16:22
Published on Care Opinion at 16:41

picture of Jonathan Lewis

Hello

I am Jonathan - the CEO - thank you for writing

The issue we have is the sheer workload the District Nurses face.

The same numbers of staff are doing 40% more than they did 4 years ago

Not only are the nurses seeing many more people, but they are dealing with patients with ever more complex medical problems. We are doing lots of things to try and improve the services - and I could not agree more that we should be able to give you an approximate waiting time. As Amanda says - this will come in time. At the moment, we are focusing on getting enough staff, moving to a clinical system that will hugely reduce the bureaucracy, and creating more joined up working - so patients don't have so many uncoordinated visits.

So bear with us - its part of our long term plan. I am sorry at the moment we cannot offer something that is quite reasonable

regards,

Jonathan

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Response from Amanda Mayo, Head of Integrated Care - Bromley ICN, Operations Directorate, Bromley Healthcare 9 years ago
We have made a change
Amanda Mayo
Head of Integrated Care - Bromley ICN, Operations Directorate,
Bromley Healthcare

My role is provide professional support to all nurses within Bromley Healthcare and to ensure services we provide are of the highest quality

Submitted on 16/01/2015 at 11:52
Published on Care Opinion at 13:24

picture of Amanda Mayo

As promised, Brownie, I said I would come back to you when we had made a change as a result of your posting at the beginning of this week.

Bromley Healthcare have 6 community teams and as of today, two of those teams are piloting giving their clients a AM or PM appointment to be seen. Obviously, on occasion, this may need to be changed due to issues that arise with other clients but we will endeavour to roll this out to other teams, if succesful, in the Spring.

Once again I really value your feedback and am really pleased to have been able to make this change.

Kind regards

Amanda

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Update posted by Brownie (a relative)

Dear Amanda

Thank you so much for your response to my concerns. Although, as a family, we are obviously hopeful that we won't need to use your service again ( excellent though it is!) I'm sure that your patients will very much appreciate your change in practice and will feel more valued and respected because of it, which may possibly even speed their recovery.

Thank you again for taking my concerns so seriously and for your prompt action in making changes. I do hope that the pilot is successful and that you are able to roll it out to the other teams. Who knows, you may even be able to reduce the time slots even more!

Best wishes

Brownie

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