Don’t get me wrong; I love the NHS. However, the fact that its various bits and pieces are not joined-up in any meaningful way makes me very angry indeed.
First, I am getting IV antibiotics at home. This entails sitting in a chair, having a bag of antibiotics hanging off a nail I pounded into the door hooked up to my PICC line (which has now become a friend, a very intimate one at that) by something called an infusion kit, which consists of tubes and a little pot into which the bag drips drops of antibiotic that are then taken into my vein by the tube.
Now when I got the prescription for the antibiotics from the hospital, they sent along the antibiotic and the bags of saline and the hepsal ampulles for flushing out the PICC line after the IV is finished. They did NOT include any infusion kits, and when I enquired, the pharmacist said that the doctor hadn’t ordered any on the prescription. I was going to say, “Well, what are the nurses to do, attach the bag directly to my PICC line and squeeze the contents into me?” but I nobly refrained.
My life since then has been a daily struggle to get infusion kits. The visiting nurses don’t have any (or many: I just got word that they scrounged four), my GP doesn’t have any, no one can find any anywhere. I called the Diabetic Foot Clinic at Kings, and they had some left over from a study that hadn’t expired. However, they are tinted because the fluids they were delivering were light-sensitive. No matter, I could use them. However, I had to get down there to pick them up.
Well.
Second, I needed to renew my prescriptions and get a new one for Novorapid insulin cartridges, which had been prescribed by the foot doctor at Kings, to replace gliclazide, which doesn’t seem to be working. So, when I dropped my prescription off last Friday, that was one of the items I requested. The sign on the wall said I could pick up the prescription on Monday, but when I hobbled there yesterday (and I took a bus ONE STOP to get there because my foot ached so much) the receptionist said that it was 48 business hours before prescriptions were ready. So I was crestfallen, hobbled back home, and didn’t want to hobble to Kings.
Today I hobbled out at 1:30 pm and went to Kings College Hospital to pick up the infusion kits and my foot diary (I’m in a study that required me to keep diary entries) which I had left there last Friday. The waiting room was chock-a-block because much of the staff was off sick, and the receptionist there didn’t know what I was asking for. One of the reasons was that I’d forgotten the name of the study nurse and asked for the package Arlene had left me, instead of the package that Audrey had left me. She finally got someone to get me that package. One task down.
I took a bus back to the Elephant and went to the GP’s surgery. I got my prescription after waiting on line for 10 minutes while an elderly lady asked many questions about her prescription of an obviously-bored receptionist who didn’t know the answers. However, the Novorapid cartridges and needles weren’t included. She said that they might have had to be authorised and I should return tomorrow morning. However, I asked her to ask my GP to call me so I can get some answers to all this. No call yet.
So, NHS 1, Chris 1 (as I got the infusion sets). I am almost out of Novorapid and I am desperate to replenish that. To be continued tomorrow, with a happy ending (I hope).
you poor thing!!! i hope your condition stabilizes soon
Oh my!!…You sure do get the “run around”…even with a bad foot, they don’t cut you much slack.
It was somewhat better yesterday.
No. A connected-up NHS would be a great thing. We don’t have it yet.
Forgot to say, your play.com item arrived. Will post it when I get well enough to get out.
A connected-up NHS certainly would be a great thing, but I don’t think they realize this. Why else would they be cutting back on IT?
The “being connected up” condition will not result from IT changes. The culture and procedures of the NHS are what need to change and then IT can be crafted to facilitate the culture and procedures.
The problem with the NHS IT program is that it does not follow from the culture and procedures of the NHS, so there will be a real culture shock when it does come in. At the end of the day it won’t work very well, people will abandon it, and the connectedness won’t follow from it.
If the NHS could be connected up without IT changes, that would be just as good. It’ll take decades.