Dear Mrs Love,I am X, and I am writing to you regarding the recent meeting that occurred on Tuesday 25th September 2018 about Mrs Smith’s discharge package. I, as her advocate am unimpressed by the lack of consideration your team had presented to her and her husband on that day. There were many aspects on that day that left Mr and Mrs Smith uneasy and confused about her discharge package.
For example, before the meeting even started the Smiths were already anxious, and this indicated to me that when arranging the meeting, there was no clarification on what will happen in this meeting which means that they were very confused. Their anxiety showed me that they were not given enough information regarding the meeting which led to them losing their confidence before the meeting even started. The multi-disciplinary team were seated on higher chairs than the Smiths who were sitting on lower “patient” chairs. This made the eye contact between the MDT and the Smiths unlevelled which came across as very disrespectful for the Smiths. They felt intimidated by the fact that they had to look up your team and due to the intimidation, Mrs Smith felt compelled later to withhold any questions that she may have wanted to ask the multi-disciplinary team regarding her discharge package when the meeting began. Also, the lighting in the meeting room was flickering which was distracting for Mrs Smith and her husband; bright, flickering lights can cause migraines, and possible epilepsy fits, in the case of the Smiths, it caused them to feel extremely stressed and irritable. There was too much background noise that came from the ward that affected the interaction between the MDT and the Smiths; this noise led to the ward nurse raising her voice when she began the meeting which came across as aggressive to Mrs Smith, and her husband.
This aggression led to the Smiths to feel as though your team didn’t want them to be there. This could have been avoided if the lights were fixed and were of the appropriate brightness and if the meeting was held in a room where it wouldn’t become affected by noise. When the MDT began going over Mrs Smith’s medical records with a lot of medical terminologies, it confused her because the Smiths are French, and they only know a minimal amount of English. She and her husband didn’t understand what your team was explaining, and this could have been avoided if there was a translator or interpreter present at that meeting. The meeting was interrupted when a member of staff entered the room to relay a message to the social worker present; this was inconsiderate because this meeting was for Mrs Smith’s discharge and for someone to have entered the room like that will reduce the trust that the Smiths had for your team. The lack of confidence will lead Mrs Smith to withhold her concerns and questions that she may have wanted to ask and the fact that the meeting had to speed up due to the lack of organisation was unfair for Mrs Smith. The lack of professionalism was also an issue during this meeting because when a doctor announced that he wanted to leave immediately due to the fact that he had another meeting scheduled, shows that the majority of your team had not organised this meeting appropriately and this limited the time to talk. The Smiths were profoundly affected by this because the doctor had then made it visible that he was impatient and was not interested in this crucial meeting. This lack of consideration made the Smiths feel as though they were not important which is the opposite to what health professionals are supposed to be promoting which is to empower service users.
Mrs Smith and her husband were also left confused due to the members of the MDT rushing this meeting because they didn’t understand what was happening in the meeting. This could have been avoided if your team had organised their schedule correctly and had shown that they care about Mrs Smith’s case. The final issue was that when the MDT agreed on what was the appropriate care package, they asked Mrs Smith and her husband to settle with this decision. This negates what health professionals promote for their service users which is to make that they can make decisions on their own. The Smiths agreed to something that they didn’t understand or could even comprehend. On behalf of the Smiths, I request that you schedule another meeting to discuss the points that I have made in regards to the lack of professionalism and organisation that your team produced that day.
