The worst thing about emergency care is not the waiting, but the aftercare | Letters

Adrian Chiles’ experience (what I learned from a freezing night in the emergency room with my father, January 31) is unfortunately the norm. Because I work as a pharmacist in a general practice and a close family member also had a stroke last year, I see this from both sides and completely agree with him that the problems start after discharge.

Despite all the chaos that occurs during an emergency visit to the hospital, the system works and patients are helped, albeit slowly. The problem lies in the disconnected IT systems between the hospital and the GP, or even between different hospitals, and patients’ lack of understanding about this. It’s not unreasonable to assume that all your relevant information has landed neatly in your doctor’s inbox and someone will call or stop by. Unfortunately, this is often not the case; hospital discharge summaries can be late or incomplete and sometimes do not show up at all. Some are still handwritten.

Important information such as scans or blood test results will not be accessible if the hospital the patient is visiting is in a different region. This often means that expensive tests are unnecessarily repeated. I often speak with patients whose follow-up has been delayed, or whose medications have not been updated because they expected someone to contact them.
Liz Brooke
Bewdley, Worcestershire