Swindon LINk

I am to be admitted for surgery next week at 7a.m. no transport was offered so I asked my surgery to arrange it.
I have to be ready for 5a.m. in case the ambulance comes early.

One has to be fit to go in for surgery.

I cannot understand why it is so hard to access out-of-hours care in Swindon now, compared with ten years ago. I have small children and often need to see a GP out of hours, usually for a high temperature or ear infection which will need medication. I used to be able to go to Shrivenham Road, having called and got an appointment. Now, I've got to call, wait for someone to call me back who then decides whether or not I'm worthy to be seen. There then follows a long wait at Cloverleaf (where the last time I was told they were very, very busy so could I wait an hour before turning up). My child had a severe throat infection so adding on another hour of waiting makes a big difference. When I got there I waited about three hours and counted eight people in and out during that time. It was not busy, there were too few staff. Also Cloverleaf can now refuse to see you if the issue is deemed too trivial, sending you to Carfax Street which closes at 8pm. Added to this, you cannot even buy simple medicines over the counter (like Tixylix) for a cold without a GP's prescription now. Why is this happening?

I fully support the views of Professor Edzard Ernst expressed in his recent review article in "The Biologist"magazine "........the notion that homeopathy is more than a placebo effect can only be upheld by ignoring or misrepresenting the best evidence available...... the assumption that homeopathy cannot harm patients is wrong". As such homeopathy is, at best, pseudoscience and should not attract public funding or resources under any circumstances even within a scenario of plentiful funding!!!!!!!!

I am happy for people to use complementary therapies as in some cases they can be beneficial, even if this is mostly due to the extra care and attention a patient receives and the placebo effect, which can be very powerful and has been demonstrated to be so in clinical trials. However, NHS funds should, in my opinion, be spent on treatments that have been proved to work and are cost effective.

I had hearing aids fitted in July 2011 but from September 2011 I was having problems of wax build-up and infection in the ears. A series of visits to my GP and the ‘walk-in’ centre, application of drops to fight infection and soften wax in the ears plus wax removal improved the situation and provided more ear care information. In January 2012 I had an ENT clinic appointment for examination and suction removal of ear wax (preferred method) and I am now on the register. An audiology appointment enlightened me about hearing aid care and the need for periodic replacement of tubes. I now feel comfortable and aware of what to do and when. It could however, have been improved by providing basic instruction information at the time of fitting the hearing aids.

when my elderly mother had an biopsy in Nov 2001. a tumor was found in one of her kidneys. Now my Mum and Dad are both in their 80s, and are quite deaf. when i asked them what was the next step ,they gave me conflicting answers. Mainly due to the fact that they could not hear what was being said by the Doctor.

So for my peace of mind I contacted PALs. I explained what the problem was ,and they said they would contact my mother to get permission to talk to me about my mothers case. Which they did within a couple of hours. They then rang me back and told me what the next step would be . They said once the hospital had an date for the removal of my mothers kidney , they would let me know. Which they did . They also explained to me the procedure in simple terms so i could relay the information to my parents. This eased the uncertainty , and made my parents less apprehensive.

A lot of the time at PALs is taken up with complaints from patients and family's , but somebody has to speak up for them when they do a fantastic job. It would be a great pity if this service is lost to the people of Swindon

I have found the Urology department to be efficient and in the main stick to their times.
However, the Ophthalmology department is a disgrace. The consultant requested to se eme in 4 months and only by complaining was I able to get an appointment after 8 months. My latest appointment is 6 months overdue and I don't yet have a date for it. Although I have been told it will not be before August.

I was recently in the Cirencester Treatment Centre for some planned minor surgery under local anaesthetic. I am a little nervous of medical procedures, but I was reassured as much as possible by the professionalism of all the staff - clerical/admin as well as the medical staff. I also visited the Devizes Treatment Centre for a pre-op appointment, where I found the same reassuringly professional and efficient but friendly approach. I should also add that we have a long-standing gratitude for the faultless service our 17-year-old daughter, who is diabetic, receives in Swindon. I know it is fashionable to try to find fault in the NHS, but we should also give credit where it's due.

If only we could book our appointments before we leave the opthalmology outpatient clinic, we would not need to ask for large appointment letters (believed to being sent to MD patients only) and please may we be sent for when our consultant wants to see us - too often this is delayed and this creats such anxiety

My doctors surgery (Priory Road) is 100% and I obtain appointments readily and my hospital experiences and attention are also 100%.

I speak from personal experience as carer for my elderly motrher who has a variety of medical conditions all of which require check ups on different days at GWH. Several of these entail blood tests before attending, and as she is hard to draw blood from this often entails visits to the gp nurse and then gwh who also struggle to get any.

It seems to me that it would be more efficient to take one blood test and schedule appointments for the various clinics one after another to make a day of it at the hospital to get it all done for 6 months in one go.

How much does the existing system cost the nhs in hospital transport, missed appointments through confusion, multiple blood test costs, admin and letters?

There would also be benefits for the patients and carers in reduced transport (also greener), car parking and possibly lost time off work.

In my mothers case she attends;

Diabetic clinic
Cardiology
Audiology
Neurology
Betjeman clinic
Diabetic retinal screen

I raised this issue at the Carers Rights Day and was told it could be organised. To date no-one has been in touch.

I was in intensive care at GWH for three days and then in the Ampney ward for four and a half weeks. I would like to thank both the day and night staff for their brilliant care. I am now on the mend.

I have visited the hospital recently and there is still a problem with the menu-less choice. If there are meant to be three choices and one is what everyone likes, what happens when you are the last to be served and the one you would like has been used up. The other choices you do not like. On a ward I visited there were only 2 salads on the trolley; they were used within seeing the first 10 patients. Not good enough.
Red trays: Some wards are particularly busy and there could be staff shortages. What if on a particular day you have a ward with 12 red trays and only 6 staff to assist in feeding? This would need to be managed. This action plan looks like a paper exercise.

Why can't these be recycled? No explanation is given in leaflet.

my daughter is anaphylactic to nuts and during a hospital stay it was worrying how little the staff appeared to know about allergy. The staff tried very hard to give her safe meals but i was surprised how little they knew and how hard it seemed to liaise between kitchen and ward.

i also had a look in the public restaurant and everything seemed to have a nut allergy warning which is so unneccessary.

I had occcasion to visit Great Western Hospital early this year (2011) to have breast cancer diagnosed. I found it such a positive experience. The staff were so kind and helpful. I am very grateful. I do hope that either Swindon or Salisbury get radiotherapy machines (better still, both). I had my radiotherapy at Bath hospital and everything went fine; but if the machine had broken down we would have had to travel to Southampton 20 times. Obviously I was grateful to have it done anywhere; but extra travel can make it more of an ordeal.

The Demonstrator Site project and Carer Liaison Team did great work spreading good practice through training professionals in health and social care and developing processes to identify and assess carers. But with both these projects now at an end, there is a risk that the good work achived so far will be unravelled. In research into carers' views undertaken at Carers Rights Day, we found most carers still felt that they were not being identified and were not being included in planning or valued as an expert care partner by professionals.

Meanwhile, as K Henson says, Caring with Confidence was found to be very helpful by most carers attending, and funding for more training for carers should also be a priority.

Carers in the UK deliver £119 billion worth of care, and it is in society's interest to enable carers to continue to provide that care - and even to increase their caring role as statutory services get squeezed. But carers themselves need to be able to get training and support if they are to meet the challenges that being a carer brings. Moreover, the full value that carers can bring will only be realised when professionals work alongside carers as part of the care team.

One item I feel strongly about is a waste prescription medication. There is not a tight enough grip on how its dispensed to patients. When medication changes, sometimes doctors do not delete the old prescription from the records meaning more waste and the need for chemists to destroy the old.

Dear Sir/madam,

I was unsure that swindon had a treatment centre, what does it do? I have MS I am particularly interested in what the treatment centre may be able to provide.

Yours Faithfully Mr G Grant.

Why are taxis taking just ONE patient at a time to treatment centres. If patients from swindon were give appointment about the same time surely it would save all this money wasted on individual taxis.

Did you know that DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic Acid?
Of course you did but did you also know that it can mean Did Not Attend!
This is often written on patients notes or used in communication with patients such as appointment letters.
A patient’s non attendance at appointments may be used to discharge them from care, dependant on the particular N.H.S. Trust policy.
So please do your best to keep your appointments or, if necessary, cancel them giving as much notice as possible.

You can see my initial report by typing the following address into your browser bar http://tinyurl.com/3rntf4p; but in summary I would say the lack of a clear message – and the wide range of options – from no Hygienist service offered to multi-year bookings recommended cannot be good for the patient, nor in the medium term for the dentists.

For a typical person – is the case for the Hygienist cosmetic, healthcare or prevention? The answer to this question could lead to a more clearer positioning of Hygienist services.

i.e if primarily cosmetic then private only is quite logical and maybe additional services should be more actively promoted – teeth whitening etc.
If primarily for healthcare reasons then it would be more logical for it to be fully offered on the NHS.
If primarily for prevention then maybe a mix of private and NHS would be the way forward with at least one visit a year being available on the NHS and extra options being available privately.

If you want to use any of the above in the more general article i put together please feel free to do so.

In view of the wide range of provisions and presentation of Hygienist services I recommend that the next stage is to try and work with the PCT to produce clear recommendations, and/or a working committee to look to the future to put together a fully financially viable plan for a co-ordinated and consistent approach to Dental Hygienists.

There is an 8 week (or so) waiting list which I have been told is for routine cases, once people have had an initial phone assessment. Once this happens the person should be given an appointment date. The current system appears to have built in delays and the communication processes don't seem to be as robust as they should be. Community rehab is a key element of prevention as well as reablement, and 8 weeks delay is not at all good.

its the easy way to get in toutch with people and stay up to date

I suffer from a genetic defect with my eyesight. The family has a history of Cataracts.

My optitican (D&A) suggested I visit my Doctor to have a referal to the hospital, meanwhile my surgery (Old Town) six months later stated it was for the optitican to recommend I go to the hospital for surgery.

Can I refer myself? If I go for another eye-test, I will have to pay for the check-up... it all seems to me to be a money making exercise, where the patient has a price afixed to his head!

At GWH they concentrate on the problem being treated but other issues that may affect the patient are overlooked. Perhaps if the patient was asked then deeper health problems could be avoided before they become serious.

...and request to collect them from either the surgery or a length list of pharmacies in Swindon - this system works extremely well for me and sounds like a very similar idea is being proposed on a larger scale which is great for those who's surgeries do not currently offer the service.
There is still a paper prescription though so would be marvellous to think that numerous trees could be saved! To reduce the pollution/ number of trees felled in order to produce the paper prescriptions.

I attended the Cirencester treatment Centre as a day patient, it is a modern unit pleasantly situated within the General Hospital.

I was well received on arrival in reception, and seen in a short time, I was as greeted by the Nurse then taken through to the ward , the lay out of the unit was then explained to me.

The Unit consists of separate beds for Male and Female patients, the ward was very clean and welcoming.

I was given a dressing gown, slippers, treatment was explained ,clinical observations were done, then it was double checked by the Theatre Nurse.

After the Op there was a choice of sandwiches, coffee, tea; I then saw the surgeon, the nurse made an appointment for my next visit and was given advice for my after care.

Staff phoned within 24 hours to check if I was alright, and a phone number was available if I wanted advice or had any concerns.

The Surgical and Nursing staff were very professional, caring, friendly, work as a team.

The booking staff were helpful.

Transport is available in some cases.

I am sitting on the Electronic Prescribing Service Project Board on behalf of LINk .

The N.H.S. is introducing a national Electronic Prescription Service (E.P.S.). This is part of the N.H.S. National Programme for Information Technology and when fully implemented will enable a patients prescriptions to be sent electronically from their G.P. to the pharmacy, of their choice, and dispensed ready for collection.

Some of the reasons for changing from a paper-based to an electronic system for prescriptions are:

1 1.5 million paper prescriptions are issued nationally every working day and this figure is predicted to rise by at least 5% per annum, so a more efficient and consistently accurate system is required.

2 About 70% of prescriptions are now repeats, so we need a system designed to handle this pattern of prescribing efficiently.

Impact on Patients.

Most patients will be issued with a ‘token’ prescription which will not have a visible signature. They will then be invited to nominate a pharmacy of their choice.

Before any changes are made various posters and leaflets will be displayed in surgeries and pharmacies. Patient leaflets will also be available in a variety of languages, Braille and audio formats.

When the system is finalised and up and running, it will reduce the need for patients to visit the surgery to collect repeat prescriptions.

I firmly believe when this system is finalised it will save many hours of unnecessary work for the G.Ps. and pharmacists and also the patients. and become more efficient. If you have any questions then please comment on my post and I will respond.

I am very concerned regarding proposals to withdraw free NHS dentistry funding for children that do not attend a denstist that is wholey NHS funded. Typically Swindon does not have many NHS dentists and from my own personal experience the NHS dentists have not been of the highest standards, so I attend a private dentist in Old Town , Swindon . If I could find a NHS dentist that I could trust, I would use an NHS dentist but sadly I have not.
The practice I attend is a very good dentist that also offers free NHS dentistry for children and I have started taking my son Kyle so that he gets used to visiting a dentist at an early age. I do not have the best memories of visiting a dentist as a child and do not want our children to suffer that too. My dentist has recently advised from next year Swindon PCT will be withdrawing free NHS dentistry funding for those practices that are not wholely NHS funded. We will find it very hard to find the money to pay for the dentist for our boys on top of everything else bringing up children. Its hard to find the money to pay for ourselves let alone the kids. I would prefer to send my children to a practice that I attend so that I know they will be having the best possible care and the whole experience of visiting a dentist is something they enjoy (as much as possible of course).
I am not sure if this is purely Swindon PCT or whether this will be Nationally. I do not know how many children visit a private dentist for NHS treatment but surely these are not big numbers and therefore is not a big budget saving scheme.
Do we really want a whole generation of kids not going to the dentist and having very bad teeth?
I understand with the debt we are in that there needs to be cuts but it feels like its the welfare of our children should be a priority wherever possible.

I am absolutely delighted with the service I receive at Carfax Health Centre. Without fail the reception staff are friendly and accommodating, which must not always be easy due to the volume and variety of people they have to deal with. I am very happy with my GP and am always able to get an appointment.

My medication was supplied quickly and efficiently by my surgery in Chiselden until the health trust redrew the map of areas eligible for surgery dispenseries to include my home area.

Now, despite being a mile and a half from the nearest pharmacy, the convenience of collecting from the surgery has been removed and I am either forced to collect the paper prescription and take it to a chemist of my choice or surrender to a cartel or monopoly situation.

This came about due to the health trust trying to enforce labour party policy before the legislation was passed so that they could look efficient to their paymasters.

Efficiency of the system or patient need was of little interest - the politicians had to be pleased.

As the legislation was not passed and we have a government that will not pass it, can we revert to a system of patient choice?

Gordon Hayward

My daughter went through a very bad patch a few months ago with her epilepsy and the effects of her medication. The family reached crisis point. Since being put in touch with the Carer Liaison Team, several things have happened to improve our situation. I have finally had a long overdue carer’s assessment, have taken part in a Caring with Confidence course where I have met other carers in similar situations. From feeling isolated and despondent about life, I have started to have glimpses of ‘light’ – my caring situation hasn’t changed, but I feel more supported.

I am very grateful for the service from time to time, as I am 85 years old and have mobility problems. However, I am reluctant to ask for the service as I realise that budgets are very stretched. Some people seem to think that this service is a right, but I do not think this is so! I would be very willing to contribute to the cost of the service but maybe it would be difficult to administer.

I care for three blocks of flats, we have drug/ alchahol dependent, vunerable adults and victims of domestic violence. on finding one residents that had removed all the socket fronts, light fittings, dismantled anything elctrical had not eaten for a week, would only let me in when the three people that had been in his front room planning how to kill left!
Having made the property safe, it took me all afternoon going from one call to another, each told me they could not help, finally being given the number I had started with!! only when I found out who his GP was, went to the surgery and insisted that the GP make a home visit did I finally get some action.
My point is this, If I as a reasonably articulate and intellegent adult found it THAT hard to get help, how can we expect these vunerable adults to get the help they need.
We need a One Stop Shop, that can advise and sign post people to right place to get the help/advice they need.

1. The seats in this area are the most uncomfortable seats that could possibly be found for those with hip problems. I suggest replacing them with softer high back ones. Most of the seats currently in the pre-op room would be ideal.
2. You can be sat in this area for hours yet there is no water to drink freely available. I had to ask a nurse who went to the staff kitchen to get me some water.
3. There is a TV in this area but it is never switched on?
I have passed on these suggestions to the GWH some months ago but failed to get any response