How?

Leicester General Hospital; big, sprawling, impersonal. It's easy for people to get lost in the sea of bureaucracy that keeps places like these staggering along.
Stanislaw has been diagnosed with a lump on or near his liver. We took him up to Leicester the other day and the lump was discovered, so they decided that they needed to find out what it was quickly.

At the hospital, there was a translator who went through everything with Stan. We brought him home and he awaited the letter from the hospital. The letter duly arrived, saying that he needed to go back to the hospital last Friday for a swab. Both of us were away but Marianne explained it as best she could. Stan took the train to Leicester but never reached the hospital as he received a call from the hospital, a Polish translator saying that his appointment had been cancelled.

Here's where it gets complicated. I took him today for his biopsy, only to be told that it had been cancelled because he hadn't shown up for his rescheduled appointment (yesterday). It's now up to the surgeon to decide whether he can have the op or not. The hospital claims that they have tried to contact him and that he has missed two previous appointments. The problem is that he gets his letters in English and if Marianne or I are not here to go through a fairly long process of explaining it to him, he's screwed. It would be nice if the hospital could communicate to him in his language as he can't communicate in ours. I'm not saying that he shouldn't have learned some basic English by now, but he hasn't and because of the missed chances of communication, he may not be granted the operation he needs, possibly passing a death sentence on him.

Something is seriously wrong with the system - I don't think Clegg & Cameron have the solution but,over the last few years I have spent a lot of time in hospitals, doctors' surgeries, care homes and witnessed the standard of care my dad receives, it's obvious to me that the NHS needs sorting out. The question nobody seems to be able to answer is; "How?"