A hospital that sent a boy home overnight to go without food or water for surgery on a broken arm had to cancel because it was too busy – and ended up treating him anyway for dehydration.
Bristol Children’s Hospital emergency department (ED) told the seven-year-old’s parents to keep him “nil by mouth” from 10pm ahead of an operation first thing the next day after he suffered a fracture in a fall.
But after receiving no phone call by the following morning they brought him back, only to be told they were “very busy” and he would not be having surgery that day.
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A report to University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Trust (UHBW) board said: “He was admitted to a ward to wait and eventually had to be treated for low blood sugar levels after being kept nil by mouth for so long and becoming thirsty, tired, dizzy and dehydrated.”
It said that as a result of a complaint from the parents between April and June this year, the paediatric orthopaedic team had created a patient information leaflet to avoid a similar situation happening again.
The report said the new material now explained the “trauma pathway, timelines and relevant contact numbers to ensure two-way communication” with the hospital.
Team training has also been reviewed to ensure medics understand how to “clearly and consistently communicate the urgency of the treatment that is required to patients and their parents”.
The ward team is also now undertaking a further set of observations four hours after the first set, added the report on “learning from complaints” from the first quarter of 2021/22.
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