If you want any advice, then yes we will need to hear the story ...

This is yet another example of the government misleading the public! The government spin is that every patient will receive gold standard treatment, that simply isn't available to be delivered by the majority of Hospitals. Do you think the hospital managers wouldn't love to have a whole fleet of senior doctors and a multitude of nurses to attend to every patient 5 minutes after coming through the door? - the sad fact is that they cant because they couldn't afford to pay them all (enhanced rates at night don't forget!) and couldn't recruit them all even if they could afford to pay them. To the OP - you and your wife had a typical admission, that many people experience when admitted to hospital at night. Not enough beds and not enough staff! This is necessarily the hospitals fault. The problem lays in the fact that expectations are higher than the hospitals can deliver! This is an issue to take to your local MP. Your wife discharged herself because she was moved from a single room?? This kind of thing infuriates me, and maybe the people who post topics on here regarding 'my husband caught MRSA/C.Diff/E.Coli from the patient in the next bed' should read that! Ok im gonna have a camomile tea and try to recover from all this It is terrible that your wife, now back at home, still isn't receiving the support she needs, i hope you get the support she requires soon.

Ok, firstly the call bell - no excuse for that being 'turned off' actually in all the places i've worked you cant turn them off (for obvious reasons) More likely is that i was broken - still not an excuse, they should not have been using a bed where the patient couldn't have summoned help. Sometimed what is percieved as a 'bell not working' is actually the fact that the nursing staff havent got time to help one patient before the next one rings and needs help. Not the nurses fault i hasten to add but thats not your fault either. Delays getting to theatre - an all too common a problem. Most places run an emergency list which is kept seperate from the 'planned' operations list. You would have been on the emergency list. Appendicitis - it can be a tricky one, not that easy to diagnose without an Ultrasound scan or a CT - did you get a scan?. Some patients with appendicitis dont ever get to theatre becasue it settles with analgesia and intravenous antibiotics. Opperating theatres arent magical places where all your problems can be solved. Going to theatre has risks associated with it, no name a few... - A general anesthetic - Risks of post-op infection - Cutting open an infected appendix and spilling pus all over your abdomen (slightly exagerated but you get the idea) - peri-operative (during the operation) complications (heart attacks, blod clots, heamorrhage etc etc) Given all the above sometimes it is somtimes in the patients best interest to 'sit and wait' to see if Theatre is necessary. As for prioritisation there are many, many, many clinical conditions other than 'serious cardiac or pulmonary conditions' (whatever they are).. that may be perceived as more serious and life threatening and need urgent attention. By the way, a 'serious cardiac or pulmonary condition' would probably exclude you from going to theatre due to the increased risk - not mean you would be rushed there any quicker ..lol... some people need to get their facts straight As for compensation - People who get the wrong drug injected and die, people who loose a limb because someone miss diagnosed something - all of these will probably get some form of compensation, becasue the outcome was terrible and unforgivable. Now im not sticking up for anyone here, just giving a different point of view... young men who get a nasty appendicitis who do get to theatre to have it sorted and get safely discharged home without any post-op complications arent on the same scale as above. Just out of interest - why did you have 3 months off work? Just a warning as not to get your hopes up, unless you can prove that someone did something wrong or was negligent, you probably wont get much. There again i've never been involved in a complaint that went that high up the hospital management ladder! If you want to complain about a negative exerience of being in hospital you should - each complaint goes towards pushing for a better healthcare system. Most NHS workers are brilliant, caring people who work in a system that doesnt give the time to do things as well or as speedily as they would like to! please be gently on them! Blimey that was a bloody long post.. no doubt some people have got something to say about what i've typed - would be happy to discuss more.