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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    showed some lack of tact in her conversation with the complainant’s relatives. But I have no reason to believe that there was any basis for the family’s fear that, had they complained, reprisals would have been taken against the patient. The complaint about the patient’s discharge and the consultant’s failure to keep an appointment with her daughter 29. In her letter to me and in her interview with my officer, the complainant said that when her mother was discharged on 4 October she could not walk althought the ward sister had assured her sister that she could. The complainant said that her sister had been asked to see the consultant together with a social worker on 30 September in order to discuss discharge arrangements but the consultant had been unable to keep the appointment. He had sent a telephone message to confirm that the patient could be discharged. The complainant’s sister could not recall who had asked her to see the consultant on that day, but it was the ward sister who had told her that he had been delayed and had been insistent that her mother could walk. 30. The ward sister told my officer that she, the complainant’s sister and the consultant had seen the patient on the ward on 29 September. The consultant said that he believed that this was so and that the patient had walked on this occasion. He had felt it was a little too soon to discharge her because, although she was ambulant and had attained a reasonable degree of continence, she could not dress herself easily; but as her daughter had been anxious to have her mother home he had taken the decision to discharge her on 4 October. The consultant added that he had also seen the patient on 2 October and she had been able to walk then. He also said that he had once arrived late for an appointment with the complainant’s sister and found that she had left, but he could not remember when this had happened. The social worker remembered speaking to the complainant’s sister on the ward on one occasion but she was unaware that the consultant had arranged an appointment to see her. 31. Two members of the nursing staff who had been present when the com- plainant’s mother had been discharged were quite sure that she had been ambulant at this time. Other nurses confirm that during the latter part of her stay at the hospital the patient had walked both with and without a walking aid; and the senior physiotherapist who had treated her said definitely that she could walk at the time of her discharge. He added that geriatric patients sometimes become so accustomed to hospital routine that any change disturbs them. It might have been that the journey from hospital to home could have upset the patient and impaired her ability to walk. 32. The district nurse who had visited the complainant’s mother on the day of her discharge told my officer that she thought the patient had slowed down a lot. Before her admission to hospital A she had been able to move around on her own, but on her discharge she was able to walk only with an effort and with assistance. 33. I am satisfied from my enquiries that the complainant’s mother was able to walk when she was discharged from hospital. But the family were naturally disappointed when, on her arrival home, their mother was not as active as they had hoped. It seems that on one occasion the consultant was unable to see the complainant’s sister at the time agreed and that she was unable to wait for him,