How to start a complaint for my elderly mum?

[jackieandwayne]

Mum is 73, recently bereaved, a little under the weather. but was hanging on in there. Until Thursday,

18th April. She woke up with a sore throat.

 

Friday morning - woke up and couldn't swallow without pain, talk, breathe properly etc, and her neck and head were swollen. No messing about Gp called, did a home visit, diagnosed a quincy throat and prescribed erythimicin (spelt wrong, never mind). Told mum if no better by Saturday she was to contact the clinic that would be open at the general hospital, and they would have her in to drain the quincy.

 

Sat morning, mum now being violently sick, making everything worse, now looking like the honey monster. Only bright red, not yellow. We rang the hospital, they told her just to try and cope until she could go back to the GP on Monday. Sat afternoon mum slept, in the evening rang hospital again, much worse now. Same advice, see GP on Monday.

 

Sun morning and I think mum was dying. On the phone to the clinic and informed them we were on our way in. Shortly after arrival she was admitted. Put on women's surgical ward. (No problems whatsoever with care she has received whilst in the hospital - we must have a gem in our general).

 

Monday and Tuesday were spent trying to cope with the infection with antibiotics, (not the first one as we now know she was allergic to that one) which didn't work. Finally, at about 11pm on the Tues she gets emergency surgery, to remove tonsils through throat, to get at quincy and drain it. And I mean cut her throat open to deal with this- very nasty and apparently a life threatening operation. We were warned she was dangerously ill, and this was serious.

 

Had the op, got through it, and has been on Critical Care Unit ever since. She's still very ill, but slowly slowly turning the corner.

 

Now she can actually speak again, mum is feeling very disgruntled at being told "to cope" by the hospital when she rang for help. Three times they told her this, even though they were told how bad she was. My poor old mum was just getting used to being on her own, doing her shopping, going out and about, doing her garden and now she is lying in a hospital bed on the CCUu, and is likely to be in for a long time, and then will need to be rehabbed. And will now likely struggle in her own home. Then lets look at the cost of all this!

 

How do we go about making a complaint? And actually chaps, is this level of treatment the norm now, do you think we should be complaining about this? Would be interested to hear your thoughts.

[honeybee13]

Hello J&W, I'm really sorry to hear you've been through this, as well as your Mum. You might have read on the Special Needs forum that my Mum has been in the wars too.

 

Have you spoken with social services in your area? My mother isn't too far from you and they've been pretty good.

 

What do you think your mum needs?

 

HB x

[scotgal68]

I can't help you with advice because I'm in Scotland and it's different here, but I'm so sorry you've been through all this and I hope you take them the full road, it's shocking and I hope your mum makes a full recovery x

[Conniff]

Such a sad story. Don't bother with surgeries etc in future, just dial 999 and get an ambulance.

[renegadeimp]

Agreed. Practice managers at surgeries regularly fob people off. THe best thing anyone can do is get an ambulance out and let the paramedics decide, as they are completely neutral and act only for the wellbeing of the patient.

[jackieandwayne]

Thanks chaps.. Yes, if ever we have something like this again I will call 999 - can be very difficult when you have an "old school" mother pleading for the ambulance not to be called because of the neighbours and what they might think. Mum has been in hospital once in 73 years - to have me! The very idea of being shoved into an ambulance and whisked away on a blue light caused her even more distress.

 

I popped into our surgery yesterday (GP) to collect some prescriptions and the receptionist told me that mum's GP was arranging to visit mum in hospital (I don;t know if this is the norm) as she was very concerned about what has gone wrong here.

 

It was a clinic at the hospital that mum was advised to go to if she was no better, and it was this clinic that made her believe she had no right to go there until she had seen her GP again on the Monday, so any complaint is going to be to the NHS Trust and not our GP who is the bees knees of GP's and we are lucky to have her.

 

I think we will fire off a complaint letter and go through the process slowly, SAR for notes etc and see what comes back.

[jackieandwayne]

And good god Honeybee if I even mentioned social worker to my mother she'd be at the front door with a shot gun ready to pick them off one by one! No, they'll be no help to her as she will not allow them to be.

 

She nursed in this order throughout her life - elderly aunt in flat downstairs, her own mother who lived with us, then dad who developed gawd knows what in his 40's, then the elderly uncle from downstairs! All died peacefully at home as she refused to let them be taken away into care. She calls social services the troublemakers!

[honeybee13]

I know what you mean about strong-minded parents.

 

I have to say, our experience has been good, and they don't call them social services where mother is, it's Care Connect which sounds a bit less scary. Age UK were good too.

 

HB x