Christopher’s experience: “I work and I look after my wife... I had to leave my wife alone for almost for a whole day”
Christopher lives in Greenwich with his wife and son. The family have learning disabilities and his wife, Wendy, has additional mobility issues. Wendy’s commode pot needed replacing and a new one was ordered from NRS Healthcare in late May. Christopher told us “Wendy ordered a new commode pot online, she’s used NRS healthcare before so we thought that it would come on time, especially because it’s essential, something she needs to use everyday.” A delivery was arranged for June. “I was waiting in for the whole day, I had to take the day off from work and cancel my plans, but no one came or called me to say why they hadn’t come.”
“I was waiting in for the whole day, I had to take the day off from work and cancel my plans, but no one came or called me to say why they hadn’t come.”
Christopher repeatedly called NRS to find out what had happened and to arrange another delivery date. Two more deliveries were arranged in June - but no delivery arrived. “I waited at home for three days for deliveries across three weeks. I called NRS and confirmed my address, but they said I had refused the item – but I hadn’t – there was no delivery. The next time they said they hadn’t been given an address – but they had my address – I told them my address every time I spoke to them. It was very confusing for me, they never explained to me what had happened, and I never would have known if I hadn’t called. It’s ridiculous. I lost three days’ worth of wages waiting in for the delivery and I am the only one with a job so my wages are really important for us.” Christopher, found it stressful trying to communicate with NRS staff, and said he had to keep telling them the same information over and over again. He said making multiple phone calls and repeating information was hard with his learning disability.
In July, worried about what his wife would do without a working commode pot he went and collected it himself. The depot is not local to his home. “I had to travel for an hour each way, when I got to the depot the manager said it had to do with stock issues and they didn’t know why the deliveries had failed. I work and I look after my wife. I lost money, time and I had to leave my wife alone for almost for a whole day. Luckily, she was OK, but I wasn’t there and anything could have happened."
Response from NHS South East London ICB and Royal Borough of Greenwich
“We are very sorry to hear of the difficulties Christopher and Wendy have had with the service provided by NRS. We have previously been alerted to this case by Healthwatch, and raised the issue with NRS so that they may learn from Christopher and Wendy’s experiences and prevent this from happening to other residents in similar circumstances. Since highlighting this issue, NRS have clarified some of their customer services practices and continue to work on bettering their communication with residents as well as those working in health and care who support them to access community equipment services. NRS also have a system in place to record any additional needs and support required by residents, in order to enable them to better support them with communication and resolving queries. The Community Equipment service being provided by NRS is a new arrangement that went into place earlier this year from April 2023. It is a large service provided across health and care needs and there have been challenges during the early days of the new service which we are aware of. These have resulted in some unforeseen difficulties that have unfortunately affected cases such as this one. The Royal Borough of Greenwich and Integrated Care Board acknowledges that there is learning to be found in the experiences of our residents, and we are committed to working with NRS to make improvements going forward and meet their needs.”
