"Surgical Review"

Dear eridanusgg53,

Thank you for providing us with your feedback. I hope that you are now healing well and recovering from your surgical condition?

I am very sorry that your experience with our surgical service was not what you had anticipated. I understand your disappointment that you felt your follow up was incomplete.

The surgeon who was meant to see you that day has apologised unreservedly for the distress that this has caused you. By way of explanation, they advise that when you weren't there at the appointed time, they had made an assumption that you were doing well, as would be expected for a post appendectomy patient. As such, they had discharged your medical file from routine surgical follow up with return of care to your General Practitioner. A letter was sent to your GP to inform them of your results and to let them know that if there were any concerns, the surgical service would be very happy to see you again.

When the surgeon was called later, they advise that they were not made aware that you were concerned. They felt that they were trying to save you the inconvenience of another visit to an outpatient appointment which they felt was unnecessary for you, given the routine nature of the initial booking. They advise that all patients with concerns about their surgical condition should indeed be reviewed at surgical outpatients.

eridanusgg53, it appears that our processes were less than ideal in this situation, and I would like to assure you that we will be working on improving the identification of patients who need surgical review following surgery, the advice we give our patients at discharge and the communications between staff with phone escalation.

I would be grateful if you would contact our Specialist Centre Nurse Manager on 91942222 please if you remain worried about your condition post-surgery and would like the surgical team to follow up about these concerns.

Kind regards

Sue