Patient Feedback
Here is a small selection of the wonderful feedback we regularly receive from satisfied patients of Dr Michael Beckles including this letter, published in full. See below for snippets of other feedback from patients and their families.
“I am writing to thank the Royal Free for the wonderful care that my mother received from Dr Michael Beckles. Sadly, my mother died at home. She had carcinoma of the lung with liver metastases.
My mother was referred to Dr Beckles for a second opinion, having previously received a diagnosis of COPD four months earlier. However, she had continued to deteriorate, with increasing shortness of breath and loss of energy. Within 24 hours Dr Beckles had made the diagnosis and booked her a liver biopsy to ascertain the nature of the carcinoma. She later went on to be seen by the oncologists. She received one pulse of chemotherapy but it was soon evident that the carcinoma had progressed so far that there was no point in continuing chemotherapy. We looked after her at home from then on.
Before she died, my mother asked me to write to you to thank you for the amazing care that Dr Beckles provided. This was critical in helping her to come to terms with death. My father had died 3 weeks before my mother received her diagnosis and my mother had been his carer for 10 years. She very much wanted to live and had a lot that she wanted to do and so she had much to come to terms with.
From the outset, Dr Beckles was attentive and listened very carefully to my mother’s history and examined her very respectfully and gently. He promptly organized the necessary investigations and made the diagnosis within 24 hours. For my mother, who had been married to a doctor, and myself (having held consultant posts in several institutions, including the Royal Free), it was evident that Dr Beckles’ clinical acumen was truly outstanding and he didn’t put a foot wrong throughout. He also acted very promptly. While there was clearly nothing that could be done to change the course of the disease, he did everything to ease her symptoms and carefully titrated her medication to give her maximal relief with as few side effects as possible. He also did simple things like ordering oxygen at home and liaising with the GP very promptly – all of which smoothed the process of looking after her. He was regularly in touch to find out how she was, even in the last few weeks of her life. He was above all compassionate throughout and treated her with dignity, which meant a lot to her.
He was clearly very busy and was sometimes interrupted during consultations about other urgent issues. He always apologised, would give his full attention to the other urgent matter, then returned to my mother and carried on where he left off. His manner, caring and professionalism were exemplary.
As I mentioned, the knowledge that everything possible was being done by Dr Beckles, together with his compassion and thoughtfulness helped my mother through some very dark times and ultimately to come to terms with her impending death. We are deeply grateful.”