"Care Opinion – It Works"

My initial story titled “Hospital Staff – The Best” was posted on 30th March 2017. My story gave feedback on various aspects of the NHS following my treatment for a Subarachnoid Haemorrhage (SAH). By the 4th April 2017 I had received responses from NHS24, Head of Patient Experience for NHS Lothian, Chief Nurse for Regional Services at NHS Glasgow, Patient Response Manager for NHS Fife and the Clinical Effectiveness Lead for Scottish Ambulance Service. All the staff that responded appreciated my comments and thanked me for them.

NHS24 and Fife’s Patient Response Manager both asked me if I would be interested and willing to talk with them personally and I agreed to do so. Fife’s Patient Response Manger took the lead and organised a meeting at the Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline. In addition to my close family and myself Fife’s Patient Response Manager, NHS24, Fife’s Consultant and Clinical Lead in Emergency Medicine attended the meeting.

From a personal perspective I needed to have these discussions as since leaving hospital I had questioned, on several occasions, my own mortality given the initial delays of some 6.5 hours from first contact with the NHS to be seen by a doctor at the Victoria Hospitals Kirkcaldy (VHK) A&E department. The purpose of the discussion was to aid me seeking closure of all that had happened and to move on.

The meeting didn’t achieve this as I was provided with insufficient evidence that supported the 6.5hrs of delays. At the meeting NHS24 stated that they are risk averse however I am unconvinced by this as, it appears, they place significant reliance on algorithms in order to make decisions on a patient’s condition. In my case, because my headache wasn’t sudden, the algorithm did not alert the call handler to my life threating condition. When the symptoms of my illness were portrayed, at the meeting, to Fife’s Consultant and Clinical Lead in Emergency Medicine, a Doctor, he indicated that a bleed on the brain could have been the cause. NHS24 agreed to review their algorithms following the meeting.  NHS24 had offered a visit for myself and up till now i wasn't ready for this.

The initial response from the VHK, in my opinion, was not great and I felt that they had come to the meeting on a fact-finding mission.

Following the meeting I drafted and sent a letter to Fife’s Patient Response Manger sharing my concerns with the process to date. Within the letter I also made the following recommendations for NHS24.

Call handlers should be provided with some sort of medical training;

Call handlers must pass the call to a trained medical person whenever the infinitesimally smallest amount of doubt exists; and

The use of devices that provide visual contact, e.g. FaceTime, Skype, etc., with the patient should be considered. 

For the VHK I made an additional recommendation;

Information fed to A&E from external sources should be reviewed by a medically trained person and categorised, e.g. 1, 2, 3 (1 being a person with the worst injuries/ailments). This information should then be passed to the receptionist such that they are able to make a decision on whether a person should be seen immediately or not.

Following my letter I believe that a priority system has been implemented at the VHK and also an additional triage nurse has been allocated which should reduce waiting times for patients.

The VHK also requested to use my story and case as part of training within the hospital and to aid this they also wanted to create a video where I share my story and experience. Being a great believer in learning from incidents I agreed to both. The video took the format of an interview, the interviewer being Fife’s Patient Response Manager and was recorded, professionally, by the VHK comms department. 

The video, as far as I’m aware, has already been used by the NHS at the VHK and was possibly going to be used for wider audiences.

I fully appreciate the size and complexity that the NHS is and that a single patient can’t change the entire system. However, small changes to any system, including the NHS, can make a difference and, although I don’t wish to see the benefits of the changes made as a patient, I truly hope that those who require the services do.

Since leaving hospital back in March 2017 I have had the most excellent care from the NHS and in particular from staff at the Cameron Hospital.  I have also visited all the wards that I attended during my illness, including wards 60 and 62 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Glasgow (a place I had no memory off) where I was warmly welcomed and I shared my story of Deacon Blue’s Dignity, apparently I sang the complete song once woken from surgery. Thank you to the staff I spoke to on my visit for your warm welcome, I now have a mental picture of where I was. 

A huge thanks also to the following personnel, Shona, Anne, Louise, Andy, Neal, Deborah, Maureen, Ben, and Jennifer, I truly appreciate the open ear, the assistance you have provided to me and for the changes that you have made.

Care opinion is a fantastic service that allows patients to provide their feedback on the NHS. A single story can be forwarded to many people and mine was shared with over 170 personnel. Patient feedback is genuinely wanted by NHS staff and believe me they do read it. It’s only by us, the patients, giving feedback can changes be made, and that recognition be given to individuals or groups.

Minor comment for Care Opinion, it can be difficult to find previous submissions, for me I had to type in Cameron Hospital to find it, using the title of my initial submission didn’t work.