No hospital bed

I tae it you are speaking from professional experience suziewoozie ?
Read what others have written.
While I sympathise with OP’s distress, I think the situation may sound worse than it is. I think it is unlikely that OP’s DD will have been left on a hard trolley.

Very unlikely. It will be a theatre trolley. They’ll need it back in theatre!

The ward bed will have been taken to recovery for her to be transferred and wheeled to a ward when a bay is available. No point in having to keep swapping and disinfecting beds.

But then Maw we’ve only our own experience to go on?

All I’m saying is that patients should spend no longer in recovery than is clinically necessary. The fact that they do doesn’t make it all right. I agree that it seems very unlikely that the OPs SD was on a trolley but the OP is probably upset and worried and assuming the worst. I hope it’s all sorted this morning and SD is back on a ward which is the right clinical environment for someone safely recovered from the anaesthetic. Yes I have professional experience in establishing and monitoring clinical protocols including transfer from wards to theatre and back again.

First of all this is not down to the nursing staff but down to the bed manager , who should be held accountable . Although not being on a proper bed , she is getting better care were she is than if she was on a ward . I just hope they find her a bed in the right ward for recovery . My husband had a urology operation and they put him on an ENT ward , where he was over looked by the urology team because he was on the wrong ward . Dressings not being done and just generally being forgotten about . I'm afraid I have no trust in the NHS any more . My husband has had three bogged operations by the same surgeon and because he can't put his mistakes right , the surgeon has cut all contact with us and our GP . Five years later we are still trying to find someone to rectify his mistakes .

Yes - so sorry for your stepdaughter Little annie. Do you remember the big promises made by Boris Johnson of 350 million pounds every week after Brexit for the NHS? It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic and here we are trying to leave the EU and asset stripping what's left of the NHS to allow the Americans to gain access to it. I have a granddaughter whose ear op was cancelled this week because of staff shortages. She has to continue trying to make the best of her schooling while she is effectively deaf. This Tory government has everything to answer for. Of course, the Johnson family don't use the NHS, they just pay privately and don't suffer the consequences like your step daughter.

I'm currently recovering from surgery that took place last week and I have to say, while the care from staff was fantastic... some elements of procedure appeared very hit and miss.
I was in recovery for many hour's, alongside others. The nurses kept giving us apologies saying "there's nobody to take you back to the ward". Recovery was mixed sex and the woman next to me was very upset about this, she said to me that she'd been there since 11.00 am, this was around 3 pm.
I could overhear staff talking and someone saying that a number of people should have gone hour's ago!

DH fell down stairs last week & went into hospital. Diagnosed with a irregular heart beat. He has amazing treatment & I cannot praise them enough but he was moved 9 times in 6 days- I never knew where to look for him!
It is a real problem for the staff as they are short of beds- & this is a large hospital- & have to move patients around all the time. He was on a bed in a corridor for some time too.

I had an operation 7 weeks ago and the care was exemplary. I have continuing treatment and so far I cannot complain.

Yes Dee - shortage of porters as well as no available space on a ward are two of the main reasons cited in the research for delayed discharge from PACU. Sometimes there is a bed but no available nurse on the ward. Hospitals monitor and audit discharge delays mainly because such delays cause bottlenecks and lead to delayed or even cancelled surgery. It also puts a real burden on PACU staff whose job is very intensive in the immediate post op period. What counts as a delayed discharge ( ie time since patient deemed fit for discharge from PACU) I think varies a bit between hospitals but is typically 30 mins. Of course hospitals try to deal with the causes but staffing shortages and resource restrictions all play their part. However, there isn’t an organisation in the world, especially one as complex as a hospital, that couldn’t improve its structures and IME most are trying.

Someone isn’t managing the ward very well at all. As a nurse I’m appalled and if that had happened when I was a Ward Sister I probably would have been disciplined. Bed shortages are nothing new though. I can remember in the 70’s beds being put in the middle of the ward because we had run out of room but we would never leave someone in a trolley and usually we’d find a bed on another ward just as a temporary measure. Ask your step daughter if she would contact PALS to explain how dissatisfied she was and how upsetting it was for her family. If these issues aren’t highlighted the powers that be are often not aware

I don't think Boris Johnson can be blamed for this , or the torie government or even Brexit . Cuts have been going on for years even under a Labour government . The is more people in the UK , more migrants less hospitals than there was 30 years ago . So there is half the amount of beds for double amount of people . As for the staff shortages if you apply for a job , they say they have no vacancies or they offer you place on the bank staff . Which is the hospital version of a nursing agency with no guaranteed hours . As for the staff the NHS has now are mostly foreign , lazy and don't want to do the job . Also the problems caused by the language barrier . The NHS waste so much money on interpreters for people who can't speak English . If they can't Speak English should they be using the NHS or paying private like we would have to do in there country . I was a nurse and the decline in the Nhs started 30 years ago .

littleannie
Understandably you are upset with what your stepdaughter experienced following her recent operation.
Yourself if stepdaughter is unable to do so herself can, and have the right, to make a formal complaint to the hospital concerned and should the reply not be to your or stepdaughters satisfaction then take it to a solicitor who deals with medical complaints.

I work in theatres and this problem with beds is getting more common. A lot of people come in the same day as their op so go straight from an admission area to theatre with a bed booked for after theatre, however these beds are sometimes given to emergency patients that have come in whilst surgery is taking place so some are having to wait for another bed in recovery. Where i work we now have another area set up with beds to make patents more comfortable as a 12 hour wait is not a rarity these days as you have to wait for someone else to be discharged and the paperwork alone takes ages and then waiting for meds to take home. Its all very frustrating for patients, visitors and staff but the alternative to cancel someones surgery is also happening a lot which is worse.

What you need to do, is take great care considering who to vote for. This is purely political, it is due to massive cuts in the number of hospital beds available. I do hope your loved one makes a full recovery.

I’m so sorry to hear that littleannie and regardless of the hardness or type of trolley or the reasons for why she isn’t now in a hospital bed, it sounds like she’s having a very unpleasant time when she’s vulnerable and in pain.

I hope things are better for her today

Ask to see the Chief Exec of the hospital pronto. If there is any kind of unwillingness to get them on site now, just tell whoever you are dealing with you will contact newspapers, MP. You have to push or else you will just be shoved! No point being nice, this should not have happened. Inspite of way SD is being treated do hope she has a good recovery.

This is not ideal but what is to be done when hospitals are so short of space and staff have to do their best for everyone? I feel sympathy as they no doubt have to deal with complaints when they are doing their best with what they have.
On our local news some time ago people in the street were questioned about the state of the NHS; most complained of similar situations to the one described by the OP, but when asked if they would pay higher NI contributions, there seemed to be a general reluctance. The sad truth is we can have anything we want - if we pay for it. None of this helps that poor lady lying in recovery for all those hours though - I wish her well and hope she is more comfortable soon.

To an extent that’s true Rosina but I have worked for the NHS for 26 years now and the waste and inefficiency is staggering. We need a complete rethink about how it’s structured and where the funding goes (are whole corridors of £60k pa organisational development managers really needed, for example?) before we start increasing taxes and throwing good money after bad.

Buster you are completely wrong
www.health.org.uk/chart/chart-how-funding-for-the-nhs-in-the-uk-has-changed-over-a-rolling-ten-year-period

Littleannie

It's understandable that you can 't go into the Recovery Room. I've been in recovery room three times over past three years. It's not the room for visitors. Sorry.

However, stay in the hospital to keep asking. Is she comfortable now?

The problem with NHS funding is not simply about increases in real terms, which the above article shows, but the fact that in recent years more treatments have been developed many of which are very expensive, so although funding has increased year on year, costs have increased even more. In addition because of all these expensive new treatments being available, peoples expectations have increased. We are not comparing like for like!

Exactly jo. Also the costs the NHS bear because patients have to stay in hospital because of lack of social care provision, caused by swingeing cuts to la funding since 2010

When I last went to A and E my local hospital was closed for emergencies. The next hospital had a que of ambulances 14 deep!
I was then on a trolley drips, sick, meds, exhausted and in pain etc all done in a busy corridor - 18 hours I was there. 9 am a bed was found finally and A and E was virtually cleared. Lots of empty beds on the ward I was on so why were so many of us left in A and E?

My surgery was cancelled three times over the following year. Leaving me constantly vomiting bile. I couldn’t even take the kids to school.

There’s an awful lot of admin, directors, faffing, and time wasted plus a lack of funds and essential resources, bed blocking too.
A complete overhaul is needed. With a sense of urgency.

Oh Buster wake up if you’re one of the shortsighted people who think there are too many migrants here I can assure you annies step daughter will probably wait far longer after Brexit when all the European drs nurses and carers return and leave our hospitals How dare you judge the foreign staff are lazy that is a a totally unacceptable judgement and you should be ashamed to say that
Annie I m wondering how you know she’s been on a ‘hard’ trolly for 12 hours as you say no visitors are allowed in recovery if you are really dissatisfied with her treatment and have got your facts correct please contact PALS they are very helpful as mediators But from my own point of view I d rather her had the op and be on a hard bed than be put off and have to wait for the operation
I hope the rest of her recovery goes well

I think that anyone encouraging this woman to sue the hospital, demand to see the CEO or threaten to go to the papers, needs to wind their necks in.
Those actions are bang out of order unless it's proved to have had a detrimental effect in the patient.
How does the OP know for a fact that her SD is on a 'hard trolley' when no visitors are allowed into recovery?
Perhaps the OP would enlighten us on that point.
In most hospitals you are taken (either walking or in your bed) to the area where the anaesthetic is administered after you move or are moved to an operating 'table' which is then wheeled into theatre.
Post op you are moved to recovery in a bed in a bay, usually the one you were originally in as your belongings would be in the bedside cupboard.
If your condition warrants going to a ward after recovery, they have to wait for an empty bed.
It isn't the fault of nursing staff if the number of ops scheduled for surgery exceeds the number of free beds available to receive those patients after surgery.
Patients who need to be 'collected' cannot be discharged until the relative or friend has arrived so the bed cannot be used.
All hospitals have, 'broadly speaking', the same methods.