My wife who has dementia, was admitted to RDH recently after spending 14 hours in ED.

She was admitted to a four-bed area in Ward  7a. This is the renal ward. She was in the ward for six days.

It was for her a horrible time of incessant bedlam and noise, shouting, demands of staff, patient resistance to staff effort and entreaty and unpredictable behaviour by patients 24/7.

She was not shifted to a more suitable situation and when discharged it was without her medications which ‘caught up’ when collected 18 hours later. I visited every day from 10.00 am until 7.00 pm when visiting hours finished. 

It took Margo three days to start resetting   and for her the whole experience set her back – all without her major medical matters being finalised.

Note please that my concerns are NOT about staff and care but rather that a particular patient cohort is able to demand so much time and attention often generating from awful to behaviour. The week was one of the very worst we have ever experienced.