A worried husband who cares for his ill wife, has launched a website for people who feel they have been let down by the NHS.

Ken Chandler, of King’s Close, Kingsdown, hopes the site, named www.patientcarers.org, will encourage wronged patients to get strength in numbers and lobby for better service.

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He was spurred into action because his wife Maureen is waiting for a knee operation at the Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, Middlesex. But surgery has been delayed because Mrs Chandler has had an open wound of 3x1 inches for a year, which the QEQM in Margate, has not ordered to be stitched up.

An investigation has been launched by the Patient Experience Team and the Chandlers are expected to find out the results on Monday, October 13.

MP Charlie Elphicke said:
"Hospitals have got to get better in organising outpatient appointments." The MP has met with the health secretary to push for a more seamless service.
"Clearly a case like that should have been dealt with sooner. He shouldn’t have had to come to the MP, the health service should be good enough to sort this themselves.”

The hole, which regularly seeps blood and puss, developed from burst stitches from a hernia operation at the QEQM in Margate.

Mr Chandler said they have been told it is too risky to operate. The stitches can not be performed at an ordinary A&E, they have to be done under local anaesthetic, a procedure complicated by the fact Mrs Chandler has diabetes and takes warfarin.

Her husband is calling for a “common sense” plan of action to get his wife well and mobile again. “I want them to pull out all the stops - take her into hospital, get her diabetes and warfarin settled, give her time to recover and then she can have the knee operation done.” But he says nothing is being done.

He feels let down by the whole experience: “The GP at the surgery has been awful and has just sat on the fence. The district nurses come round and say it’s healing lovely and then it bursts again; and PALS (the patient experience organisation) have been abysmal”.

Mr Chandler added: “I fear if this isn’t done, there will come a time when the stitches have been done and they will say the leg has deteriorated so much that the knee operation can’t be done and she will be bedridden for the rest of her life”.

He launched the website, not to spark a campaign against our NHS, but to help despairing patients, and to enable feedback to eventually improve the health service.

A hospital trust spokeswoman said: "We are extremely sorry to hear that Mrs Chandler has experienced difficulties with our service and we are fully investigating Mr and Mrs Chandler's concerns."