How DHCW systems carried me through an unexpected hospital stay

By Gillian Davies-Evans, Patient Safety Manager, Clinical Directorate

In November last year I was living my life as normal doing last minute preparations to spend some time in Dubai with my son and his family, but events took a bit of a turn and rather than spending a lovely time in Dubai with my family, I spent 8 nights courtesy of Cwm Taf UHB, in Prince Charles hospital… and most of it on the Cardiac Care Unit! 

I’d had times when I’d been feeling a bit under the weather over the last year, and noticed I was getting tired, breathless and had some muscle pains, but nothing that overly concerned me.  I just thought it was part of living a busy life, and the usual guilty feeling of needing to take up more exercise classes!  

I had a lot of tasks to do before going away, and one was getting bloods taken at my GP practice. I have diabetes and the usual clinic was running an hour late, so the blood collection was missed, and I was asked to arrange the tests at my GP practice instead.

To be honest getting the blood test was simply one of the tasks I needed to tick off my list that day, my hair appointment was equally (if not more!) important, especially as I was about to fly to Dubai!

The bloods were conducted by a Healthcare Assistant (HCA), who also took my blood pressure (BP) and pulse. My BP was high, but we talked about stresses that I’d been feeling. Later in the day as I was sat in the chair (18 miles away) awaiting my hair cut, I had a phone call from the practice asking me to go back as they wanted to do an ECG - to record the activity of my heart.   This request confused me a bit, and I offered to call in the following day.  I was a bit surprised to be summoned again with another 2 calls from the surgery to have an ECG that day, and to be told that the healthcare assistant would wait for me.

In hospital

It was explained that my pulse was low at 44bpm (which is apparently fine for an athlete, but I am no athlete) and I had bradycardia.  It was so concerning I needed to go straight to A&E at Prince Charles hospital (do not drive, leave your car here I was told) and from the moment I arrived, and was eventually triaged, all my details… my medications, my summary record was to hand in the digital Welsh GP Record. This hasn’t always been the case. I was in hospital a few years ago and I had to give my details several times, and repeat my medical history and repeat medications to different departments and doctors, but that wasn’t the case this time.

I spent the first night in A&E GP assessment unit/majors and was monitored overnight with telemetry to record the activity of my heart – and it became apparent that I needed to stay in hospital. But I didn’t have to get stressed or concerned with giving or repeating any of my medical or personal details – the right people had my information available to them, and all I had to do was try and sleep through the constant beeping of machines.   

The following morning after a restless night, the Cardiac Consultant explained that I had  complete heart block and would need 24hr monitoring and bed rest until I could have a pacemaker fitted six days later.

I was admitted to the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU), hooked up to a portable telemetry machine and was told I had to have complete bed rest. My correct medications were ready and waiting for me in my bedside locker, and no-one was asking me to repeat my details. As I moved between departments, and between doctors and nurses, it was all seamless. I felt like DHCW systems were carrying me through.

In the time I spent on CCU I hadn’t noticed any nurses having to write anything down. The consultant was viewing my information on a laptop on a cart that was taken around the ward, and the nurses were adding information on the digital Welsh Nursing Care Record (I asked).  The only thing I noticed that wasn’t digital were the ECGs and writing on charts for the time and quantity of medication given. It was all a big contrast to just 4 years earlier, when I had cause to remind the hospital about some information the consultant had missed in my paper notes during an awake procedure and had ended up having that operation stopped midway through it!

Finally in Dubai

With a further deterioration in my pulse now at 35bpm, I had the pacemaker fitted in the cardiac catheter lab, right next door to CCU. I had a minimum of six weeks of recovery after that where I couldn’t drive or fly, and I had to try not to use my left arm so the pacemaker wires could bed in. It all went well, and In February 2024 I finally got to go to Dubai, and felt extremely lucky I didn’t get on that original flight in November, unaware of my condition.

I wanted to share this story because I’ve worked in the NHS for over 25 years, and in DHCW for 9 years, and I see all the hard work people put into creating and maintaining the digital systems in our hospitals, and now I’ve seen for myself those systems working well in a hospital setting and carrying me through an unexpected procedure.

I really don’t have any desire for another hospital stay! But I’ve heard that medicines charts are soon to be replaced by a digital system… so in the next few years a hospital stay will be even closer to 100% paper-free!

From my experience, I know DHCW is making a difference. A hospital stay is a less stressed experience for patients and those who care for them, whereas previously patients had to remember and repeat many times their medical history and medications. So, thank you and well done DHCW!