Health Service Commissioner : second report for session 1977-78 : investigations completed December 1977-March 1978.

  • Great Britain. Health Service Commissioner.
Date:
1978
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Health Service Commissioner : second report for session 1977-78 : investigations completed December 1977-March 1978. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    wife on the morning of 24 January (who has since left hospital A). She said that the complainant’s wife had telephoned in something of a panic and had asked if she could be seen in the consultant’s clinic that afternoon. The secretary had explained that this was not possible as the clinic was full. Although she could not remember precisely what she had said, she had no reason to suppose that she had not followed her usual practice of referring the patient to the accident and emergency department. However, the complainant’s wife had asked if it would be possible to see the consultant privately and the secretary told her that it might be. She emphasised to my officer that she would never commit a consultant to seeing a patient in this way. She said the complainant’s wife had accepted this. She had later tried to telephone the consultant to let him know what was happening but was unable to get in touch with him as he was on his way from one hospital to another. 12. However, I have seen that the administrator of patients services at hospital A interviewed the secretary when the complaint was first received and quoted her as having said to the complainant’s wife that ‘she felt no doubt that the consultant would see her’. 13. In an interview with my officer the receptionist said that the consultant had decided not to see the complainant’s wife and he had in fact told the com- plainant through the glass panelling of the reception booth—‘If you wish to see me please make an appointment’. She therefore told the complainant’s wife that she could not be seen and offered her an appointment on 7 February; it was only afterwards that she discovered this to be the date already offered to the complainant’s wife as a result of her telephone conversation the previous week. 14. The receptionist told my officer that the normal practice, if immediate treatment was requested, was to refer the patient to the accident and emergency department, but she did not refer the complainant’s wife there on this occasion because she was aware that such a referral would ultimately bring in the con- sultant who, she knew, wanted to leave hospital A early and who had already decided that the complainant’s wife was not in need of urgent treatment. She had therefore recommended that the complainant’s wife go back to her family practitioner. She denied that she had been rude or unsympathetic to the complainant’s wife; but although she could not recall saying that ‘she would be admitted by her GP before then’ after the complainant’s wife said she could well be dead by 7 February she agreed that she might have said it. She acknow- ledged that, although it would not have been said with any rude or malicious intent, the complainant’s wife might have found it a tasteless remark. Conclusions 15. I cannot say exactly what the consultant’s secretary told the complainant’s wife on the morning of 24 January. But, on the evidence, I think it likely that the complainant’s wife had been wrongly led by the consultant’s secretary to believe that she would be seen immediately before the start of the clinic and it was this belief that started the series of misunderstandings that caused her not to be seen at all. I can understand the refusal of the consultant to see the complainant ahead of the patients who had definite appointments. But, con- sidering that she had a letter from her family practitioner asking for her to 104