Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

Gone without the chair so would you come round and piggybacked my wife about the house till Sunday? P S complaints dept CLOSED as was the whole place for the holiday. I helped one lady with me pushing her mother in a wheelchair wander around asking where she should be as there was no-one at reception to help.

I rang there was put onto complaints and as I said CLOSED

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

Just what I've been saying for ages dave, I was a bit upset the last twice I was in, being in isolation I couldn't play my favorite game spot the clipboard:rolleyes:

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

I received a phone call @ 11, hospital transport “I have to deliver a folding wheelchair to you!”

So not only are they able to loose one they can’t cancel a delivery when it has already gone.

Has I not told him we had it what would then have happened?

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

It could have been worse, he could have called at your house saying he's come to collect a wheelchair, tipped your wife onto the floor then gone away with the chair!
:)

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

Social workers have a bad press that I cannot subscribe to. The hospital S W has spoken to me many times and three today! She asked me had we had a visit from a district nurse, no, the ward should have arranged, that she told me adding that the bed that Kath has may well not be right for her and the D N should have been asked to assess that.

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

I can confirm loads of things brought up in this thread. First of all, Margaret P is right about going through the proper procedure for complaints. Many patients use the PALS servce for their complaints, but by far the most effective way is to write a letter to the manager of the service you have used, Surgical, Medical, Maternity etc. These letters are acted on immediately.

The procedure for discharging patients is always a bugbear. the pressure on beds is immense, especially medical beds at this time of year, hence the dreaded departure lounge. External pharmacy staff are now providing an outpatient service to try and relieve the in house pharmacy staff so that discharge meds can be done quicker. Unfortunately, the ambulance waiting time is out of the hospital's control. Ambulances are run by a completely different service and have to prioritise emergencies.

Sadly for the ambulance service, they have to deal with a lot of timewasters who use them as a free taxi and here are some examples.
1). I had 3 patients brought in to my department by ambulance last night, 2 of whom had cars but their husbands couldn't be arsed to get the car out. All 3 were sent home within the hour because there was nowt wrong with them. I know that people are whining about the weather but I got up early off the night shift yesterday in order to dig my car out and get back to work, many of my colleagues walked to work so that we could keep the service running. If I can dig out and get there from Accy, I don't see why the patient's partners can't get them there from Blackburn.
2). On Boxing Day, a man rang for an ambulance because he had a new computer which he had been playing with for several hours and it had given him a headache!!!!!!!! There was ****** all wrong with him that a couple of Paracetamol wouldn't cure.......
This is the idiocy that the ambulance service are up against, no bloody wonder they are unable to handle patient discharges in a timely manner.

I have to agree that there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians in the NHS. For every new change that the government bring with the NHS, they put in a new tier of management to deal with it. This is not the fault of the frontline staff but the fault of central government.

Love it or hate it, the NHS is here for a reason and for the vast majority of people it does a bloody good job. Many people on this forum, including myself, would not be alive without it. It is never going to be a perfect service, but no service which provides for the total population is ever going to be. However, we are lucky in this country, if we don't like the services provided by the NHS, we have the choice to go private. By the way.........they make mistakes in the private sector too. :)

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

This is why I always take my Hubby with me to my appts
no one wants to argue with him, funny thing is he isnt that
mean looking or anything.

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

There is a way to limit the number of non essential ambulance calls ... if you call an ambulance in Ontario, one will arrive at your door and take you to the nearest ER. The service is not free. There is a charge of $45.00; however, the charge does not apply to pensioners and those receiving welfare support. And if you genuinely can't afford it, the charge is waived. However, if, in the opinion of the physician who examines you, the ambulance call was unnecessary, you will be charged full price for the call: about $600.00, I think. There is an appeal process. Which reminds me, if any of you fine folks plan to visit this great country of ours, buy medical insurance.

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

summat on that style is long overdue here fer time wasting *******, like the time wasting stupid cow that dialled 999 cos her cat was giving her grief, differant thing but same principal, Bounce the clowns= Less Clowns.:rolleyes:

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

I think your spot on cashy, if anybody making a frivolous 999 call, it should be an automatic £100 fine, £500 if you do it again, if something like this was implemented I think you'd find the stupid 999 calls would stop immediately

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

A further visit to that place! Discharged on the 4.5.11 with new medication, when I ordered a further supply after calling the pharmacy (Pals) on 2.6.11 I got only one she had been on before. More calls by phone and since I had a sit in Thursday I called at the docs (at the pals) apparently her discharge notes had not been sent to our G P so the new drug she was on could not be prescribed. I was told that the staff at the docs would call Q P H. Apparently a G P had to call and ask for the notes before he could prescribe the right medication. Almost a month with only one months supply and a G P had to call for the notes.

No! I have not been to the complaints there as a G P having to call for medical notes before medication runs out should be in itself a wake up call!

When she was taken in the whole place was awash with police, A & E, 2 to each person admitted (mostly drink) no wonder the police are overstretched.

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

You really do need to go through the official complaints procedure.

A rant on here might make you feel better, but it does not actually get to the root cause of the problem.
If you have had problems then there is a good chance that others have experienced the same kind of thing.
The Authorites are not clairvoyant and do not know of your difficulties unless you tell them...if you don't tell them they cannot get it right for you.
You do not give them a chance...and that, my good sir is not right!

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

I made a complaint regarding discharge procedures at the Royal, two and a half years ago Margaret, and I'm still waiting for a reply, although the thing I complained about has been sorted, to an extent, this also included prescriptions on discharge. As far as I'm aware, what used to happen when a patient was discharged was a letter was always given to the patient to give to their GP, now this doesn't happen, they now say that your discharge notes are faxed through to your GP, I think I'd rather rely on furnishing my GP with these records at least I'm sure they will get there

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

If you make a written complaint, then the hospital is legally obliged to follow it up within a prescribed timescale.
They have to notify you that they have received your complaint, they tell you the timescale in which the complaint will be investigated and then they have to tell you what they plan to do about the complaint.
When I was working at what was then, QPH, we were informed to treat even verbal complaints as written complaints...and had to complete IR4 documentation.

Sometimes I think the GP surgeries are to blame, in that they tell you that they haven't received the notification from the hospital when they actually have, but it is filed in the wrong place.
If this is not the case and the hospital is at fault then the right thing to do is follow the complaints procedure. Complaints are subject to audit.
It does absolutely no good to come on here and rant about an establishment, but not follow the procedures laid down that will enable the hospital to investigate the situation....and if everyone did this then there would never be any improvements.
We never ever revisit successes...only failures...and those we can learn from.
I know that I am no longer involved in the daily doings of the hospital, but I do feel it is very unfair to put something on here without giving the hospital an opportunity to redress the balance.
There are people out there who are waiting to go into hospital, and this can be detrimental to their experience.

Re: Blackburn Royal Cockup Hospital!
 

I never heard a thing Margaret, and I sent my letter to the address and the named person which was given to me by the sister in charge of the patients ambulance departure lounge, because she was not happy at how things were being done, I'm not sure but I don't think they use that departure lounge now