12/04/2020
The matron of the Day Surgery Unit (HRI), who had been tasked with investigating my complaint, phoned me. I asked her why there were such long waiting times, and why all the patients for one session had to report at the same time. Her reply was that ‘as patients came from far and wide it would enable their procedures to be staggered’. It did not make any sense at all that all the patients arriving at the same time could be staggered! My answer to that reasoning was to tell her that I could not believe it, and that it was a ‘fairy story’. I then asked her to put it down in ‘black & white’, she said it would be included in her response. I reported everything she had said very soon afterwards to a Complaints Service (PACS) worker Susan Riach and asked her to remind the matron what she had said and that she would include it in her response. She agreed so to do, and months later when queried about it, she confirmed she had done so. Therefore was no way she could have forgotten, she had lied. I did phone the matron to ask why she had not done so, without result, she was irritated, she wasn’t at all keen on being interrogated by a mere patient.
The matron never did publish what she had said that day. Excuse after excuse came out. She couldn’t remember what she had said, she hadn’t written it down, she wasn’t required to do so as it was a phone call under a PALS rule, which was never published, ergo not true. She forgot to add that the point of her pencil was broken and despite it being a surgery unit couldn’t find a knife to sharpen it!
I reported all this subterfuge to the head of complaints and board of directors, but nobody took any notice. This I know, from experience, is a typical response at Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust whenever I bring up something distasteful.
Is PACS really fit for purpose? In my books NO!
Anyone interested can see some of the emails generated in this case, please email me at davidcclegg@live.com for info.
Everything treated as strictly confidential, thanks, David Clegg.