Fatal consequences of the NHS’s reluctance to address systemic failings
SIR – Your headline “Scandal of sick patients rushed out of hospital” (July 21) rings a sad bell with me.
My husband died four years ago. For 18 months he was misdiagnosed by one hospital as having an inoperable cancer. We moved him to another hospital, which diagnosed a liver infection and prescribed the correct antibiotic within two days.
With this administered intravenously, he made great progress. However, in order to send him home, he was put on an oral antibiotic which produced such violent side effects that he had to be readmitted to hospital. Eventually he was declared free from the infection and discharged, only to die shortly after as a lack of attention to feeding had caused him to lose about a third of his body weight.
The coroner delivered a narrative verdict. The subsequent report of the ombudsman found that the medical profession had done everything correctly except for giving him a misleading leaflet on one of the procedures.
The NHS will never perform well as long as it resists admitting errors and continues to punish whistleblowers.
Ruby Cook
Diss, Norfolk SIR – My mother was admitted to hospital on a Thursday afternoon with severe upper abdominal pain. An ultrasound scan of the gall bladder was inconclusive, so a CT scan was requested. When I asked when this would take place I was told Monday, unless there was a backlog from the weekend. The scan took place on Wednesday afternoon, by which time my mother’s gall bladder had perforated. She died on the Saturday.
There is a lot more to the implementation of seven-day hospital care than just getting the consultants in.
Carol Chadwick
Wilmslow, Cheshire SIR – I strongly support Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, as he seeks seven-day hospital consultant cover. Members of the British Medical Association should realise that when Tony Blair sold them the contracts for consultants and general practice in 2003, he attacked the basis of ethical clinical care developed over centuries.
They should also realise that nobody is safe today from inadequate weekend care. Four years ago, I had a replacement hip inserted on a Thursday, in the teaching hospital trust at which I had operated for 25 years. I sustained a bleed in my spinal column from the epidural.
Though I knew immediately on recovery that something was wrong, I could not get any nurse to take my complaint seriously. At night and during the weekend, my medical cover was provided by a junior doctor from another discipline, but only if he was called by the nursing staff.
There was a time when we looked after our patients, irrespective of the day of the week. It is necessary to recapture what has been lost.
Russell Hopkins
Newport, Pembrokeshire