Share review of Community Services - Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Community Services - Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust 2023-05-26 Person 5 5 0

There are two reason I have given the feedback the highest marks: the first being the care the service gave to my mother following a fall at home and the second is the same outstanding care given to me following my recent hip replacement recovery. My mother experience was second to none. It all happened around my impending operation. Up to that point I was the primary carer - with other family members unwell and couldn’t help or those used to me doing everything. My mother has always been very independent, but illness had made her recently quite dependent. My operation lost funding twice due to this reason. And my quality of life got worse. Discovering that should my mum have short-term needs and this service was available was an incredible weight off of my shoulders in thinking If anything happens the service will support with what’s required. I went ahead and had my operation safely in that knowledge. As if turned out she did require support and I called the service. As my mother wouldn’t get a key box ( due to being mugged at doorstep in 2018) it fell to family members being contacted in my absence. This level of services was the highest, where the nursing staff would call one of two numbers and a someone would let them in - this was until my mum felt well and said enough to answer the door herself. Throughout the whole process it was about helping my mum to get well, keeping my mum independent and seen. It was achieved! The kindness and care she received I’ve not known before in any hospital or Dr’s surgery. This knowledge of the service led me to call on the day of my discharge, after learning only a week before apart from a 24hr ward helpline I would receive no aftercare from Woodlands Hospital. My mother has a hip replacement at Kettering General and I keenly though that’s what would happen to me, ( id even liaised with the Occupational Health who put it all in place for my mum) I was discharged at 8pm on a wet, Friday evening into the care of my husband and son. I arrived home with no seat to fit in, no equipment but a plastic seat to be attached to toilet and no way of getting up and off ( due to not be able as would have broken hip precaution as I have severe arthritis in other hip too. It was a shock. My bed was already high and I thought borrowing my mothers travel comode would suffice. Downstairs I had no raised furniture unsafely able to perch on a computer with no fixed wheels. I did have the foresight to call Millbrook Heathcare who’d fitted a stair rail for my mother ( under your recommendation) But they couldn’t come before I went into hospital. Without ICT I could not have recovered as I have j readiness for next hip replacement. All. Rises and physios that attended me and my mother throughout our care should be commended for their care, kindness and professionalism.

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