Sadly due to an accident at home involving broken bones in my arm and a head injury after a fall down the stairs on the morning of Thursday 10th May I was taken to hospital (Arrowe Park) by ambulance.

At Arrowe Park Hospital I was taken to Accident & Emergency where I was seen to, sent to X-ray, sent back, got twelve stitches on my head and a plaster cast, then admitted to ward 11 for an operation.

Sadly an operation couldn’t be arranged for Thursday, due to various reasons one of which being other patients with a higher clinical priority (and issues to do with the strike of hospital staff on the Thursday).

I was given a provisional date of 12th May 2012 (Saturday), however this:-

a) could be changed and

b) was provisional on the hospital having a spare bed on Saturday

So, I discharged myself on Thursday morning and returned by arrangement as a day case on Saturday morning. After three other people had had their operation in the morning, I was operated on under general anaesthetic, then taken back to ward 11 about 1.30 pm.

After the required time and tests I was then discharged early evening. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the doctors, nurses especially the ever patient nurse Julie on Ward 11 and medical students from the University of Liverpool involved with my care. I thought I recognised at least one of the 5th year medical students from my time at UoL.

I’d also like to thank my wife too for her care, as I realise it’s a lot of upheaval for her and being a former NHS employee she had a few differences of opinion with the staff at the hospital.

She did get asked to leave by the staff on a number of occasions, but I wanted her there, and to be honest, on each time this happened (except once) they weren’t justified in asking her to leave and the problems were caused by factors outside our control, such as the strike on Thursday causing the staff to be stressed, poor communication between some of those involved in my care (and with her) and the fact that I didn’t repeat to her everything told to me by the staff when she was only a few feet away and other things. Certainly some staff aren’t fully aware of current hospital policies and internal communication within the hospital (between staff) could be improved, which would lead to increased efficiencies and shorter patient stays (and less cost to the taxpayer).

Sadly the day I had my accident many hospital staff were on strike. The main service affected during my stay on Thursday was the hospital porters. This job was done by managers, who weren’t as familiar with the role (or layout of the hospital) as the porters are. Things ran more smoothly on the Saturday when they were not on strike.

During my stay on Thursday and Saturday there were some minor errors made by staff, most of which were sorted out, but considering the disruption and stress caused due to the strike some of this was understandable on the Thursday. The hospital ran much more smoothly when the staff weren’t on strike.

However I cannot type or write effectively with my right arm in plaster and it’ll be a while before I’m back to 100%.

Casework brought to my attention during the election will take longer and I will be doing the election expenses return later than planned and relying on my agent to do most of it.

If you do email me it may take me longer to reply than normal and updates to this blog will be less frequent until I am fully recovered.