Patient left in transport limbo

An elderly man who was discharged from hospital after an operation waited more than eight hours for patient transport to take him home — but it never arrived.

Mr George Richardson, 86, was in Lincoln County Hospital for 24 days after hip replacement surgery.

He was discharged at 10am and told transport had been booked with Arriva for 2.10pm to take him home to Edward Avenue, Newark.

Mr Richardson waited until 9.45pm for the patient transfer ambulance but it failed to arrive, despite repeated assurances that it would.

He said the hospital site manager eventually booked a taxi to take him home — despite medical advice that sitting in a car could potentially damage his hip replacement.

Mr Richardson arrived home at 10.45pm, having refused meals all day in the belief that he would soon be home.

He described the ordeal as dreadful and has complained to the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS). He said he was waiting for an apology.

Neither United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) which runs Lincoln Hospital, or Arriva, can agree on who was responsible for Mr Richardson’s long wait.

ULHT told the Advertiser its staff repeatedly tried calling Arriva throughout the day, but could not get through.

Arriva said the hospital did not make it aware Mr Richardson was ready to travel and, therefore, did not send an ambulance.

'Some kind of apology would not be amiss'

Mr Richardson wants someone to take responsibility for what happened.

“The only person who took responsibility was the person who, at 9.45pm, managed to book a taxi to get me home,” he said.

“They were the only person to take responsibility and since then no one has. I have not heard anything from PALS, the transport company or anyone else.

“Some kind of apology would not be amiss.

“Nothing turned up and I kept asking when I was going to get transport home.

“They didn’t allow me to have private transport because the seats would probably be too low for me.

“At 6pm they transferred me from a ward to a waiting room and I was told then that transport was definitely coming but it wouldn’t be until 9.15pm.

“At about 9.45pm I got a bit irate because it was getting late.

“It wasn’t the nurses’ fault because one of them was trying to sort it all out for me.

“Having sat there going bored stiff for 24 days in hospital, to suffer this was absolutely dreadful.”

Mr Richardson said he had no complaints about the staff at Lincoln Hospital or his treatment.

'We do fully understand the distress this has caused'

Mr Mark Feather, national head of operations at Arriva Transport Solutions, said: “Non-emergency patient transport operates a book-ready system meaning the hospital must notify us once a patient is ready to travel.

“This is a standard procedure for booked patient transport journeys and reduces delays caused by patients not being ready when crews arrive at hospital to collect them.

“Regrettably the hospital did not make us aware Mr Richardson was ready to travel and therefore an ambulance was not sent.

“Hospital staff are able to book patients ready to travel by either calling our control room or using our online booking system, which can be done in less than 30 seconds.

“We also operate a widely-publicised escalation process, which was not followed in this case.”

Mr Feather said on the day Mr Richardson was discharged more than 260 patients were successfully booked as ready by hospital staff across the region.

He said: “However, we do fully understand the distress this has caused for Mr Richardson and recognise we must work together with healthcare colleagues to prevent unacceptable delays such as this.

“We will remind Lincoln hospitals of the requirement to book patients ready to travel either through our control room or via our online booking system.”

A spokesman for ULHT said: “We are sorry that Mr Richardson experienced a longer than necessary wait for his transport home, but can confirm that transport was initially booked for him for 2.10pm on the day he was discharged.

“Despite ringing the transport company repeatedly throughout the day to confirm his booking we could not get through to speak to anyone, so eventually organised transport ourselves.

“We will be in touch with Arriva to ensure future patients do not experience unnecessary delays.”