"Death of a loved one"

Our mum was with a surgery for 40 years. She had a heart condition and was on Warfarin for over 30 years and water retention tablets. Out of the blue 2024 the pharmacy rang and said she was to stop taking the water tablets, within days her legs were swollen and painful, the 111 service were called and they attended and put her back on the water tablets and antibiotics for gout.  

Sometime later She was at her regular blood check with the anticoagulant nurse when the doctor popped their head in and said she was to be taken off warfarin as it was being phased out. This was challenged twice by her son as they had been told that the new medication was not recommended.

Within days She became seriously ill and was in severe pain. The doctor was informed by my brother of her deterioration. The doctor phoned and stated it was unlikely to be the new medication and continue with the new meds. 14 days later the doctor phoned and said they had looked at her notes and she can’t take the new meds and resume with the warfarin. They gave no indication of how much she should take just  to start using warfarin again.

My brother was told to bring her into the surgery for her blood to be checked. Her legs, feet, hands and arms were severely swollen and black and blue.She was having trouble breathing/ walking/moving eating and in constant pain.

On arrival at the surgery  my brother asked for her to see the doctor,  he was informed the doctor was too busy to see her. He was advised to take her to the hospital were she died 2 days later. We put in a complaint to the practice manager. A meeting was arranged by the practice manager.

On arrival to the surgery after being made to wait for half an hour we were called into the doctor whom the complaint had been made about. The practice manager didn’t have the decency to even attend.

The doctor tried to justify why they had taken her off life time medication. They stated we had to understand her records had not all been digitalised and most were still on paper form, they also said that they hadn’t read all her notes and was unaware she had mechanical valves in her heart.

They then said that warfarin was being phased out and the new tablet was just one a day and it would save her “constantly” having her bloods checked at the surgery.

We then asked why he had placed her on new meds when the manufacturer’s instructions clearly stated that patients with mechanical valves can not use this product and to remain on warfarin.  They again said that they had not gone back far enough on her records and stated that in 2008 she had had a pace maker put in. (Which was irrelevant to what we were discussing) I asked why when the pace maker was put in then, wasn’t it flagged up as an alert on your system, wasn’t there some sort of safeguarding to prevent this. No answer was provided.

They were cold, disrespectful and dismissive couldn’t answer why there had been shortcomings  in her care, from taking off the water retention tablets and then the warfarin,  they had  not held ANY consultations with her in regards to removing her medication, or medication reviews, advice absolutely nothing. 

Absolutely disgusting behaviour from a so called professional. We asked what they would do in the future to prevent this happening to other people, they said -It’s a learning curve for me, I will make sure I read the records for other cases.

We hadn’t attended with a minor inconsequential complaint, we had gone to understand why the practice had accelerated our mothers death.