Summary
This blog tells the story of a patient, a relation of Patient Safety Learning's Chief Digital Officer.
It explains how the patient was failed by the system, seemingly a system designed to fail when its users need it most.
Some of the issues described here are technology-based in nature, but the concepts are easy to grasp.
A phrase that another person commented when hearing about this story was "when common sense and compassion are lost, there is no hope left for the NHS". I think we have now entered that territory (sadly).
Do feel free to comment or add your own stories below....
Content
The elderly lady who had previously been fiercely independent and dismissive of most offers of care support was declining quickly. It was a bank holiday weekend and her family were desperate for diagnostic support, and managed to track down a Consultant Geriatrician willing to see her on Sunday morning. The Geriatrician was very concerned and wrote an immediate email referring her to the local palliative care team.
She confirmed to the anxious family members that this was now an 'end of life' situation and should be managed accordingly although the timescale was not entirely clear yet.
In the hours after the Geriatrician left, the patient – let's call her Anne* – declined even more rapidly. The family had managed to get care support in for that night, but in the meantime were struggling to help Anne. They found the number for the local emergency palliative care team. Knowing that the Geriatrician had already made a referral, they were hopeful that help might be available quickly.
The person who answered the phone asked for the patient's name, checked their computer system, and said that they couldn't find it. The family explained that the emailed referral had been made several hours earlier that day to the main palliative care team. The emergency responder explained that the two palliative care teams operated separately and had separate software systems too. The referral would not be processed until Tuesday, after the bank holiday had ended. The family asked whether the emergency palliative care call handler could send help anyway and this was rejected. The common sense and compassionate thing to do would have been to have sent help or asked for the Geriatrician's email address to confirm the referral and urgency. Neither of these were done. No help was sent.
This story shows just how fragmented systems are in the NHS – two parts of the same locality's palliative care team not able to see each other's information. It also illustrates that while some clinical services may be 24/7, the administrative support that may be key to their use is 'office hours' and that no appropriate 'coping mechanism' to deal with this has been created. Lastly, it shows that the NHS is melting down in terms of how it responds to many aspects of care provision, especially urgent and emergency care. Common sense and compassion are disappearing. When they are gone, I see little hope in the NHS providing the acceptable levels of care that people need and are entitled to.
*Not her real name.
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About the Author
Clive Flashman is the Chief Digital Officer at Patient Safety Learning.
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