Mistakes do happen

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I have seen some posts on this forum which have left be bemused.

Members have been sharing their experiences and explained what happened, some good, some not so good. There have been a few examples where I have felt that “a mistake” has been made by the healthcare professionals. I am choosing to call it a “mistake” as that is probably what it was and the purpose of this post is not to worry to much about how it happened, but what to do once you know it has happened.

Personally, when I become aware of a “mistake” I bring it to the attention of the person who made it so it can be corrected. This is particularly important if /when the mistake can have consequences. As an example, recently my Mum was in hospital and she was seen by several members of the team including the consultant, the ward doctor, a TVN (tissue viability nurse) and a pharmacist. Each of these consultations had to be documented with an entry on Mum’s (hospital) medical record. When Mum (patient) is discharged, a summary is created and a copy given to the patient (to say they agreed) to the discharge and a copy is sent to the GP for the GP record and also for GP to review and provide further support as appropriate.

There were “mistakes” on the discharge summary and clearly had they been sent to the GP, the GP would have had the wrong picture of what happened to Mum during this in patient stay in the hospital.

The summary under heading “Problems” said 01/12/2025 (date admitted) STROKE (Confirmed)

This was clearly wrong as this was not the reason why Mum had been admitted on this date, yet had I not spotted it and got it corrected, the GP would be looking at this and thinking Mum had another stroke …

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My message to you fellow forum Member is that the most important thing for you to do if you spot a mistake or you think the doctor has incorrectly documented something, is to get it corrected asap as it has [potential] implications on any care and medication you may receive in the future. It is absolutely in your interest to make sure this happens.

Namaste|
:pray:

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Good advice. Mistakes do happen & we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge them. Equally we should follow up on things that they state they will do but haven’t done or are taking too long.

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If that’s me you’re referring to, I didn’t find out until discharge that this nonsense was on my notes, and I have advised my GP

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Hi Dexster - It’s not you specifically - there are many posts where I see this, though yours was the most recent and it reminded me to write up. My Mum was in hospital in December and her discharge summary in no way reflects what they did - I have already posted this elsewhere and also on previous visits it has been the same. So we are very vigilant.

Thanks for acting as the trigger :slight_smile:

:pray:

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Iappreciate you taking the time to answer

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@ManjiB 100% agree :folded_hands:

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ManjiB very crucial information ,everybody should take care of the same.We should also check if the consultants about patients past/current medications/surgical treatments if not documented in the records.

Thanks a lot.:slightly_smiling_face:

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Thanks - I feel strongly about this because from personal experience we know that all professionals are “trained” to do their jobs, but it is my belief that many do not do them well. This applies to all professions i.e. doctors, lawyers, financial advisers, builders etc. etc. It seems to be that there is a belief that just because someone is a professional they know what they are doing.

I say “No”, a professional is merely someone who is paid to do a job, but it does not mean they do it well or they even know what they are doing.

Maybe I have been unlucky, but I have been on the receiving end of poor service and bad advice from many professionals in all walks of life. When I was at school, some of my teachers (professionals) were very good, but equally there were others not so good. Later on in life, when I was looking to borrow money, I was given some very bad advice on how to borrow money and what vehicles to use i.e. endowments to pay off mortgages etc.

All these experiences have left me with an instinctive defensive mechanism kicking in any time I deal with professionals. I simply cannot trust them until they have proven themselves.

In the case of doctors, be they GPs or hospital consultants, they have been particularly bad for Mum because she has always needed advocacy and for some reason when dealing with advocates, doctors perform even worse than they do when dealing directly with patients. As I said, maybe we have been unlucky and I do know many on this forum cannot praise their doctors and consultants highly, but I guess they are the lucky ones.

Where we are now, we are merely trying to limit the potential damage that can be caused when it comes to caring for Mum. Being a nonagenarian, the healthcare professional has no clue how to deal with her as she (to them) is so hard to understand. All they can say is “Oh well, she is doing well for her age” or “She’s had a good innings, now let’s just make her comfortable” and other nonsense cliched phrases.

Looking after #1 is all you can do as you simply cannot rely on anyone else. Things are not what they used to be - gone are the times when people cared about what they were doing and had pride in what they were doing. Today we live in a materialistic world and worse still technology has dumbed things down to a new low.

These are of course my [very] personal views and thoughts and I daresay some or indeed many may well disagree, but that is fine. We still [just about] live in a free world, but for how long?

Best wishes to everyone.
Stay well, stay strong and remember, today is the first day of the rest of your life and so ask yourself “What am I going to do about it?”

Namaste|
:pray:

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@ManjiB I 100% agree with all except I am old school and still give 100% to what I do. You put it very well :heart_eyes:

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I do so agree. From experience in hospital, I can 2identify training opportunities” especially as I am a diet-controlled type 2 diabetic, and some of the information and treatment I have been given, or has been attempted, is directly poor/unsuitable for this illness, which is a very common one in older people. It seems that none of the training for the nursing degree covers T2 diabetes, so we have to look out for ourselves.

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Sorry - how do I correct typos

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There is a little pencil you click on , correct the error and save, done.

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Thank you for taking the time to tell me that

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