Letters to the Editor:- "NHS in Liverpool poor cancer care cover"

"I must commend the care that has received from the NHS in Liverpool (ABSOLUTELY NOT). Besides all the miss information that she received in the early stages of diagnosis , has struggled to get in touch with the hospital and the Macmillan Nurses , all of whom are supposed to be easy to reach for a cancer patient. In the past has been told that nurses etc are busy with patients etc, only to find out that they weren't, also she has waited in when they have promised to ring on a certain day, only to find out that they had booked the day off. There is an advertisement on the TV, saying how these MacMillan nurses have been such a great help all the way through a patient's personal journey through his/her treatment. has met her nurse on approx 4 occasions and has not seen or heard from her since 15 December 2015. When was released from the hospital on Monday, 21 December 2015, she was told that a District Nurse would come out to tend to her and sort her drain out 'EVERYDAY.' As of yet no one has been out. has rung the hospital and they can't promise that a nurse will come out today. The doctor told her that she can make her own way back to the hospital if she needs her drain emptying or removing. ******* still has a drain in her left side and I have had to empty it for her. I think that it's disgusting. I would advise that if you require cancer care, you look to find it in another area. Will they or won't they? That is the question. has been out of hospital for 3 days now and never had a visit from the district nurse. The district nurse was supposed to come out every day to tend to. They promised yesterday that they would be here today, we'll see... The thing is, ******* drain needs removing now, we have just rang them and they can't tell us when they will come. Do we wait until stupid o'clock for them to come? Tomorrow is Christmas Day and we will struggle to get anything done then. Well now it's 12.15pm and no sign of the District Nurse, so it looks like I'm goanna have to put through more pain as I try to get dressed to go to The Liverpool Royal to get the drains removed. I must say that Professor Holcome did a fantastic job of 's double mastectomy and I have no complaints about the actual operation, it's just everything else surrounding the care that ******* has received. We were dressed and ready to leave and at 12.25pm a District nurse finally turned up with every excuse in the book." Yours faithfully, (name and address supplied).

Editors note:- "We have removed the name of the people involved so that as treatment is still taking place.  This is an editorial choice not the supplier of the letter, whose identity we have not also published for the same reason.  We will contact the parties involved for a reply and pass next week.  We with ******* a swift recovery and we hope this issue can be resolved quickly."

Hospital Crutch Amnesty

MERSEYSIDE and West Lancashire Patients who ahve been given NHS crutches to help in their recovery are being asked to give them back when they are no longer needed. Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust issues hundreds of pairs of crutches to patients who often forget to return them once they are no longer needed. Unreturned equipment costs the Trust thousands of pounds a year.

Caitlin Edwards, Clinical Therapy Manager at Southport hospital said:- "We are asking people to return crutches which are no longer needed. Although crutches are only used for a short period of time, they can be used again by new patients. We can clean and repair crutches and then reissue them. This will negate the need to purchase extra pairs which cost around £11 each."

The crutch amnesty will run until the 31 March 2016 and crutch drop off bins have been placed in several locations across Southport and Ormskirk:-

Hants Lane Clinic Hants Lane Ormskirk L310 1PX UK		Ainsdale Centre for Health and Wellbeing 174 Sandbrook Road Southport PR8 3RJ UK
_	Southport Centre for Health and Wellbeing 44 to 46 Hoghton Street Southport PR10 0PQ UK	_	Rehabilitation Department Ormskirk and District General Hospital Wigan Road Ormskirk L310 2AZ UK