On South East news earlier this week they stated that patients would have to go to Darent Valley instead. My family's experience of DVH is not at all good. My mother-in-law was a patient there earlier this year and the standard of care left a lot to be desired. She was 90 years old and fell over three times at night due to very poor bandaging of her leg. She needed to use the toilet and couldn't get anyone to help her there so she tried to get there by herself. The bandage on her leg came undone and she slipped on it and cracked her forehead which became badly bruised. It took them three days to get her head x-rayed. She had to cry and beg to get her leg bandaged on another occasion - the nurses were too busy to help her.
When my husband and I visited the hospital, the antiseptic gel dispensers at the entrance were often empty. On one occasion they were all empty on our arrival so I reported it to the front desk. When we came out an hour and a half later they were still empty and when I complained to the reception staff, they just shrugged and asked what I expected.
She was discharged too early on a couple of occasions and had to be re-admitted - each time having to go through A & E again. One time in A & E she was in absolute agony and crying with the pain but staff just walked past and ignored her. We asked for pain relief and tried to point out that you wouldn't let an animal suffer like that. The nurse in charge just told us not to interupt the staff as we would delay them even further with her treatment.
She was originally admitted for chest pains but contracted 'hospital acquired pneumonia' and cellulitus whilst there and ventually died of septicemia several months later.
These are just a few examples of the lack of care she received, so anyone being sent to DVH instead of QM may not be in for a very good time from our experiences.
Had my first kid born at the QM and the second at the QE. Both were kept in for a week and the noticeable difference between the two was the cleanliness. The QE was cleaned a regular basis whilst the room my wife had at the QM was cleaned once in a week!........
The Qm did have a problem with infection rates a few years ago JohnnyH2........ my ward had a permanant dedicated cleaner on duty all day ( on a surgical ward) in February, and worked continuosly. Changed the water in eqch sub section of the ward, as in 'barrier cleaning'. I think the recent hospital infection rates had a higher approval rate than QE. I can only state what I experienced, earlier this year. My elderly father in law caught an infection in there 7 years ago so I know that from personnal experience that things needed to improve. Hopefully all hospitals have raised there game....
See that there is a campaign in this weeks News shopper to save QM's is being stepped up with a front page petition by the editor Richard Firth. Well done newshopper an important issue.
Also the star letter from a David Leaf questions the temporary nature of the closure, and calls on the trust who he cites as beig grossly incompetent, for failing to provide adequate provision, or using the temprorary measure to remove those services as envisaged in APOH., while avoiding any scrutiny or public accountability for this decision. He also questions the integrity of the decision making process, and its independence citing one of the 4 members of the review Dr Medhurst a director at NHS Bexley, and a member of APOH who last month issued a statement to axe these services. If this is local democracy, transparent and independent...... we should all have concerns!
As i stated before QM has important issues, and difficult ones to overcome, but local people need to support there local services, and there opinion must be listerned to if we live in a democracy!.
I'll be honest, just about every experience I have had at Queen Mary's has been pretty spectacularly bad. Don't really want to go into details but the standard of care and cleanliness - and basic humanity - in general left a lot to be deisired. That's not to say there wasn't good people there - there was - but overall I have been pretty appalled with the general standard.
Wouldn't know if it's better or worse anywhere else to be honest either, can only speak from personal experience. Anything to improve standards and the quality of care can only be a good thing in my book - as long as that's what its really all about, and not purely just a way of cutting costs.
Fair comment Off-it, as I posted it has serious issues, besides the costs, unfortunatly in my my experience other local hospitals in my experience are worse.
Having a choice, is also a good leveller, to retaining quality of service, if you have a virtual monopoly as envisaged by having a centrallised hospitals service at QE, somehat isolated in location for people without transport in Sidcup/Bexley as no trains go there, and the bus service is both costly and indirect.In the middle of winter going to Woolwich common!. Sorry, this is about the local community having a choice, and having an independent review as promised. The document APOH had many critics as to it's conclusions and supporting medical supporters. When questioned for a list of these people they could not be found! If my memory serves me right.
Alright for rich middle class people to opt out and go to private hospitals, but that is not the issue. People if they can afford it, have a National Health service, not a postcode health service, and are entitled to a decent standard of care, provided by local hospitals. Not because a previous goverment issued a promisery note to comit to health care despite being less efficient and failing to deliver the same standards of care, which we all deserve.
Do not be afraid to question men in white coats!, they do not have a monopoly on wisdom!, and the accountants who claim to run them certainly do not.
There is a problem with giving people a choice - to be able to give a realistic choice to people you need the capacity to do it - the more popular choices will need to have the capacity to cope with higher demand and the less popular choices will need to be scaled down. When the relative popularity switches round (as it will do), so the capacity must switch with it. That means either having some way of dynamically changing the size of various hospitals or having spare capacity in all hospitals and both of those options means higher cost.
[cite]Posted By: ME14addick[/cite]On South East news earlier this week they stated that patients would have to go to Darent Valley instead. My family's experience of DVH is not at all good. My mother-in-law was a patient there earlier this year and the standard of care left a lot to be desired. She was 90 years old and fell over three times at night due to very poor bandaging of her leg. She needed to use the toilet and couldn't get anyone to help her there so she tried to get there by herself. The bandage on her leg came undone and she slipped on it and cracked her forehead which became badly bruised. It took them three days to get her head x-rayed. She had to cry and beg to get her leg bandaged on another occasion - the nurses were too busy to help her.
When my husband and I visited the hospital, the antiseptic gel dispensers at the entrance were often empty. On one occasion they were all empty on our arrival so I reported it to the front desk. When we came out an hour and a half later they were still empty and when I complained to the reception staff, they just shrugged and asked what I expected.
She was discharged too early on a couple of occasions and had to be re-admitted - each time having to go through A & E again. One time in A & E she was in absolute agony and crying with the pain but staff just walked past and ignored her. We asked for pain relief and tried to point out that you wouldn't let an animal suffer like that. The nurse in charge just told us not to interupt the staff as we would delay them even further with her treatment.
She was originally admitted for chest pains but contracted 'hospital acquired pneumonia' and cellulitus whilst there and ventually died of septicemia several months later.
These are just a few examples of the lack of care she received, so anyone being sent to DVH instead of QM may not be in for a very good time from our experiences.
sorry to hear all that ME14, seems her care, or lack of it, left a lot to be desired. It's not known locally as Death Valley for nothing.
Thing is saga..... In the 50s and 60s 'cottage hospitals' were shut or run down to gain the advantages of economy of scale, hence the reason that you had GDH and QM, they were seen as both the centrallised hospital where the main resources at a borough level were kept. Path labs, Surgical and a certain amount of specialisation. Although they were not teaching hospitals, they could essentially treat 95 per cent of most infections, surgical proceedures. When GDH close and QE opened with its new wards, and advanced theatres and one would like to assume modern better, more effecient proceedures, in a more centralised part of the regional health authority they would essentially serve Greenwich residents, and QM Bexley residents. With the teaching hospitals, and specialist hospitals like Burns units, at Roehampton, would use the economy of scale that benefits would result in. Then the NHS brought the internal/external market into the NHS and instead of being a national health service, you had regional health fighting against fellow hospitals for personnel, money etc. I do not have an isue with the fittest surviving, but it has to be a level playing field. And one that has to be resonably funded.
Yes the NHS cannot conceed to every ones demands and wishes, for every possible treatment and proceedure.
I do not have an issue with people who wish to join a private health hospital scheme, my concern is for the great majority who cannot afford such a luxury, and who frankly have paid taxes, or fore fathers have.
They deserve and should rightly expect a decent level of competent health care from all NHS hospitals.If the local hospital cannot or wil not provide this the patient should have the right to seek care in a neighbouring hospital, but at there choice if possible. In other words if they do not want to wait say 12 weeks, and can be seen in 6 weeks in Yorkshire, providing they pay the transport costs I do not hve an issue with this!. Perhaps the key question is why hospitals have such large inomalies in there waiting times. If they are so good, why cannot they share there expertise with the national network, and pay for this.Is this not free market economics. Remember it is a national health service, and a national standard of basic care should be aimed for, delivering good quality, cost effective treatment as soon as possible for all. Not post code lottery allocation, based on bizzare local customs!.
The particular issues at QM is the apparent biase of the people undertaking the review, and the need for QM to compete with QE when the former hospital is more effecient and more popular, in both clinical and finacial reports.
If QM was delivering, poor quality health care, less effeciently, and not as popular as QE the choice factor would be less effective.
We seem to be closing a decent hospital because it is more efficient because of the politics of the internal market, gobbled up by the politicians !
Comments
When my husband and I visited the hospital, the antiseptic gel dispensers at the entrance were often empty. On one occasion they were all empty on our arrival so I reported it to the front desk. When we came out an hour and a half later they were still empty and when I complained to the reception staff, they just shrugged and asked what I expected.
She was discharged too early on a couple of occasions and had to be re-admitted - each time having to go through A & E again. One time in A & E she was in absolute agony and crying with the pain but staff just walked past and ignored her. We asked for pain relief and tried to point out that you wouldn't let an animal suffer like that. The nurse in charge just told us not to interupt the staff as we would delay them even further with her treatment.
She was originally admitted for chest pains but contracted 'hospital acquired pneumonia' and cellulitus whilst there and ventually died of septicemia several months later.
These are just a few examples of the lack of care she received, so anyone being sent to DVH instead of QM may not be in for a very good time from our experiences.
The Qm did have a problem with infection rates a few years ago JohnnyH2........ my ward had a permanant dedicated cleaner on duty all day ( on a surgical ward) in February, and worked continuosly. Changed the water in eqch sub section of the ward, as in 'barrier cleaning'. I think the recent hospital infection rates had a higher approval rate than QE. I can only state what I experienced, earlier this year. My elderly father in law caught an infection in there 7 years ago so I know that from personnal experience that things needed to improve. Hopefully all hospitals have raised there game....
Also the star letter from a David Leaf questions the temporary nature of the closure, and calls on the trust who he cites as beig grossly incompetent, for failing to provide adequate provision, or using the temprorary measure to remove those services as envisaged in APOH., while avoiding any scrutiny or public accountability for this decision. He also questions the integrity of the decision making process, and its independence citing one of the 4 members of the review Dr Medhurst a director at NHS Bexley, and a member of APOH who last month issued a statement to axe these services. If this is local democracy, transparent and independent...... we should all have concerns!
As i stated before QM has important issues, and difficult ones to overcome, but local people need to support there local services, and there opinion must be listerned to if we live in a democracy!.
Seems a bit of a stitch up to me!
Wouldn't know if it's better or worse anywhere else to be honest either, can only speak from personal experience. Anything to improve standards and the quality of care can only be a good thing in my book - as long as that's what its really all about, and not purely just a way of cutting costs.
Having a choice, is also a good leveller, to retaining quality of service, if you have a virtual monopoly as envisaged by having a centrallised hospitals service at QE, somehat isolated in location for people without transport in Sidcup/Bexley as no trains go there, and the bus service is both costly and indirect.In the middle of winter going to Woolwich common!. Sorry, this is about the local community having a choice, and having an independent review as promised. The document APOH had many critics as to it's conclusions and supporting medical supporters. When questioned for a list of these people they could not be found! If my memory serves me right.
Alright for rich middle class people to opt out and go to private hospitals, but that is not the issue. People if they can afford it, have a National Health service, not a postcode health service, and are entitled to a decent standard of care, provided by local hospitals. Not because a previous goverment issued a promisery note to comit to health care despite being less efficient and failing to deliver the same standards of care, which we all deserve.
Do not be afraid to question men in white coats!, they do not have a monopoly on wisdom!, and the accountants who claim to run them certainly do not.
sorry to hear all that ME14, seems her care, or lack of it, left a lot to be desired. It's not known locally as Death Valley for nothing.
Yes the NHS cannot conceed to every ones demands and wishes, for every possible treatment and proceedure.
I do not have an issue with people who wish to join a private health hospital scheme, my concern is for the great majority who cannot afford such a luxury, and who frankly have paid taxes, or fore fathers have.
They deserve and should rightly expect a decent level of competent health care from all NHS hospitals.If the local hospital cannot or wil not provide this the patient should have the right to seek care in a neighbouring hospital, but at there choice if possible. In other words if they do not want to wait say 12 weeks, and can be seen in 6 weeks in Yorkshire, providing they pay the transport costs I do not hve an issue with this!. Perhaps the key question is why hospitals have such large inomalies in there waiting times. If they are so good, why cannot they share there expertise with the national network, and pay for this.Is this not free market economics. Remember it is a national health service, and a national standard of basic care should be aimed for, delivering good quality, cost effective treatment as soon as possible for all. Not post code lottery allocation, based on bizzare local customs!.
The particular issues at QM is the apparent biase of the people undertaking the review, and the need for QM to compete with QE when the former hospital is more effecient and more popular, in both clinical and finacial reports.
If QM was delivering, poor quality health care, less effeciently, and not as popular as QE the choice factor would be less effective.
We seem to be closing a decent hospital because it is more efficient because of the politics of the internal market, gobbled up by the politicians !