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"I left feeling quite upset"

About: Cheltenham General Hospital / Cheltenham Birth Centre

(as the patient),

Today I visited cheltenham maternity clinic. While I'm usually satisfied with the care here. Today seemed very unfriendly and was upsetting and made me worry alot about my baby. 

I arrived for my scan. I have been advised to have extras as I lost a baby previously and in my scan a few weeks ago I was told my placenta was low lying. 

I arrived at the front desk with a mask after waiting while the staff member behind the desk was extremely grumpy with the people infront as they hadn't brought a mask. 

It was my turn and I saw that the staff member who was shouting was themself not wearing a mask. Which I found to be... odd. 

They spoke to me in a manner that was cold and impersonal and grabbed my notes. I have PTSD. This manner was not friendly and set me worrying. Then I was handed a urine sample bottle and told I had to provide one - I asked if i needed to give it back to her or the nurse and the reply was sarcastic. I explained I was waiting for a scan. They said I needed to do one anyway. 

When I went into the scan room the sonographer was also unfriendly and cold too. Started scanning me and then got angry my bladder wasn't full. I told her the person at the front desk had requested I provide a sample hence my bladder was no longer full. They started to get a bit irate and said that they couldn't assess the placenta and I shouldn't have bothered to come for the scan. I was looking forward to the scan and to seeing my baby. The sonographer refused to show me the babies face and started telling me about a couple before who had tried to film their baby on the monitor and so they no longer wanted to help people with it. They then gave me a horrible photo, which I suspect was on purpose, that didn't even show my baby so I left feeling quite upset.

Warmth and personability is really important in health care. I now don't know if i need to keep worrying about my placenta or not. The NHS doesn't give an option to provide this feedback on their appointment without going through a formal complaints process. So I'm using this app. 

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Responses

Response from Jean Tucker, Patient Experience Improvement Manager, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 13 months ago
Jean Tucker
Patient Experience Improvement Manager,
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Submitted on 28/03/2023 at 15:15
Published on Care Opinion at 15:15


picture of Jean Tucker

Firstly, apologies for the delay in responding to you. Your feedback is important to us and I was saddened to read about your experience on what should have been a happy occasion.

I will send a copy of your concerns to the departmental manager to share with her staff so that they are aware of the negative impact that they had on you that day and I am sure that they will also be saddened. Importantly, though, is that they can learn from this experience.

I hope all is well with you now

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