Overnight

Recently I had to visit the Leicester Royal Infirmary for a minor operation in the day surgery unit. I must admit the care I received there was excellent on the ward and the nursing staff were lovely, but something is wrong with the system and it all comes down to transport.

With the growth of large hospitals and the closure of more local hospitals and services they provide many people are left have to travel in excess of fifteen or twenty miles to the nearest large hospital for treatment, but there transport needs are never really considered. Take a patient who goes by ambulance to Accident and Emergency only to find once they are released and have been seen there is no way to get home. If you call your ambulance you are not likely to remember you need cash or debit card to buy a ticket for a bus or a train. Why would you when you have bigger things to worry about.

It is all right the hospitals saying they need save money for patient care, that goes without saying but people still need to get home. Not sure how much it costs to keep someone in overnight and then provide them with three meals but it has to be more than the cost of providing those that need it some form of transport to get them home. Not doing so make the whole system of day surgery really unworkable for a number of people, and especially so for older patients. 

In my own case, after day surgery I wasn't allowed to go home or allowed to drive for 24 hours. The hospital had no choice but to keep me there for that time and then find transport for me in the end to get me home after refusing to let me even use public transport 24 hours later. It wasn't like I could even drive to the hospital in the first place and stay 24 hours, the cost of car parking is prohibitive and so limited in a city centre hospital that even the staff have trouble driving to work and parking. 

The Government really need to think about there health care policies and think of the consequences of centring all hospital care in large city hospitals and the effects it is having on the population, especially those who don't have access transport or who are on low income. I can image if you are a lone parent, you don't drive and live in Oakham and you have to go to Accident and Emergency in Leicester at ten at night, getting you and the child home could cost you a reasonable part of a weeks ESA payment.