A ROCK and roll musician whose leg was amputated due to gangrene has told how he was forced to scramble down steps on his bottom after a new hospital pick-up service kept turning up late.

The patient, of Somers Town, London, edged down a narrow stairwell outside his home and got a friend to wheel him up to the 168 bus stop in Eversholt Street, in what became a mission to get to the Royal Free Hospital for his regular physiotherapy sessions. On Friday, a year after his leg was amputated, he collected his new prosthetic limb.

The hospital in Hampstead said yesterday (Wednesday) that it was “very sorry” for delays to its new service, blaming a system error and adding that a special “project manager team” from the hospital is working with the new company to “resolve these issues”.

The patient said: “They just don’t turn up and, if they do, they are late and it means I lose time of my rehabilitation. It’s not just me, it’s everyone in the physiotherapy. It was very undignified going down those  steps.”

A Royal Free spokesman insisted a driver was there to pick the patient up on time on Friday morning but that he had left already, adding that he had not given them a mobile phone number to contact him on.

Yorkshire-based ERS Medical replaced Medical Services Ltd as the patient pick-up provider for the Royal Free after hospital governors “radically reviewed” the contract in a bid to get what they said would be a “world-class transport service”.

ERS Medical is owned by the SRCL Group which specialises in transporting clinical waste to and from NHS hospitals, but has recently expanded its operations.

The patient lives on the second floor.

In March last year, a seemingly innocuous blister on his leg developed gangrene and experts at University College Hospital were forced to amputate. The patient, who has diabetes, said: “Because of my high sugar levels, the nerve endings in my foot had been destroyed. I broke my foot but didn’t realise it, and when I got a blister the skin came off, and bacteria got in. They tried me on every type of medication, but I was touch and go. I nearly died.”

A Royal Free Hospital spokesman said: “We are very sorry that on a few previous occasions ERS Medical was late in collecting this patient for his physiotherapy appointment, and regret any inconvenience or distress caused. This was due to an error in ERS Medical’s system for booking physiotherapy appointments, which had already been resolved before his Friday appointment.”

Camden Council’s housing chief Julian Fulbrook said: “Last year, this man declined our suggestion of moving to alternative accommodation. However, if he now finds he is struggling to cope we are more than happy to assist him.”

http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2015/apr/musician-forced-slide-down-steps-after-nhs-bus-failed-turn