Common sense needed in NHS

CAN anyone from the NHS explain to me why common sense does not prevail when determining appointments for the elderly? On March 6, my dear friend of 92 years of age was given an appointment at the urology department between 9.30am and 10am. They can’t have taken into account his age and health, or that he was discharged from Rugby St Cross on the February 12 having fallen and broken his thigh. He now requires home care four times a day and needs to use a walking frame. To get to this appointment he had to have a carer assist him from 6.30am to be ready for when the ambulance came to pick him up. When they got him to hospital just after 10am, of which he had no control, he was told that they couldn’t do anything for him as he didn’t have his walker with him and they needed him to be able to get to the toilet at the end of the corridor. He told them there was nothing in the letter about needing a walking frame.

The outcome of this was they gave him another appointment, in two weeks’ time, and sent him home rather than find him a walker or wheelchair. Being a hospital I thought this wouldn’t be problem – apparently not so.

Now they have to go through the whole process again, send a letter, organise an ambulance and I will have to arrange carers.

I can only hope the hospital takes these things into account and gives him a reasonable time of day with his new appointment. Is it any wonder people are disillusioned with the NHS and why it’s losing money? Surely finding him a frame or wheelchair would have been more cost effective? Gerry Magan Tile Hill