"Failed again"

Dear Fedup70,

I am very sorry to learn of your family member’s experience and the prolonged wait for treatment of their condition. I can appreciate how distressing and worrying this must have been for both of you, particularly given the concerns raised by his Oncologist and the uncertainty you were facing at the time. Please know that we take every patient’s condition seriously, and our team works hard to prioritise care based on clinical urgency.

Emergency departments can be unpredictable, and sometimes patients with life-threatening conditions require immediate attention, which can lead to waits for others. The short stay unit offers a space for patients to receive care close to the emergency department resources with some additional comfort when a treatment is identified to commence. I am sorry to hear that care for your family member was still delayed despite being placed in the short stay unit, and that care did not meet the request from the Oncologist. I understand that you were seeking reassurance that their condition and the concerns communicated by their treating specialist were being properly acknowledged. From your account, it appears we did not take the time to adequately listen to your concerns, explain the clinical process clearly, or provide the compassion and reassurance that you both deserved during what was clearly a very difficult situation.

If you are willing, I would like to invite you to contact me on 9722 1560 so that I can better understand your experience and investigate your concerns more fully. As a Regional Hospital, we are committed to continually improving our services, and I would value the opportunity to speak with you directly and learn from your feedback.

Once again, I sincerely apologise that your experience in our Emergency Department did not provide the level of care, communication, and reassurance that you and your family member needed at that time.

Sincerely,

John Brearley

Co-Director Bunbury Hospital

Dear Fedup70,

I certainly do understand your desire to see changes for cancer patients presenting to ED. Whilst I would love to be able to provide you with a clear commitment to changing the ED process so that Cancer patients can be fast tracked for assessment, unfortunately this would preclude other patients with subspecialty or complex needs from being appropriately treated according to their level of medical priority.

All Emergency Departments across Australia are guided by the Australian Triage Scale - a five-level clinical tool used to determine clinical urgency. This might mean that someone with a history of a chronic or progressive illness could be assessed as requiring less urgent care based on their level of capacity and medical need at that time. I realise this can create concerns for patients and carers invested in receiving a prompt response. That is why it is incumbent on the ED team to explain to the patient and family why a different priority has been given.

Given your experience and the information above, what I can commit to improving is how our team engages, explains and assures patients and family on how they understand the medical concern, the level of urgency and the time frames required to address the concerns identified by all parties. Your feedback demonstrates that we could have done this much better.

I do hope you have some assurance that we take your feedback seriously. I also trust that your next experience at Bunbury ED reflects our commitment to service improvement and a positive patient experience.

With thanks,

John Brearley

Co-Director Bunbury Hospital