"No hospital shop"

Hello yankeeks44

Thank you for your feedback, we value and welcome all feedback regarding the Western Trust. I would like to start my response with a little background to shop facilities on the Altnagelvin site. When the Trust opened the new main Altnagelvin Hospital entrance at North Wing in 2020 the previous retail shop vendor did not uptake the offer of a new lease. The Trust therefore instead opened a café outlet which you are correct in highlighting does not sell basic toiletries. I apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Patient essentials are available at ward level on admission such as toothbrush, toothpaste, towel and comb. I am not sure from your feedback if this was offered to you and this will be raised with ward and department managers in terms of learning. In regards to litter and cigarette butts the Altnagelvin site, as with all of our Trust sites, is a smoke free, vape free site and there are signs to highlight and inform anyone visiting any of our hospital sites. Unfortunately, we are aware of breaches to this despite our best efforts in asking patients, visitors and staff not to smoke on site. We also advertise Trust smoking cessation support through many different platforms to help support people who smoke/vape and wants to stop. The Trust does not provide bins for cigarettes butts or litter at entrances as we believe that can be seen to encourage smoking. We also recognise that litter bins can be a fire risk unfortunately. There are bins located inside the hospital buildings. The grounds are cleaned/cleared every morning but unfortunately we are not resourced to monitor and clean this 24/7. I will take your feedback to managerial meetings for highlighting and discussion and if changes arise, I will notify you back via this care opinion platform again. I hope you will find this response useful and please feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss further Warmest regards

Joanne Quinn Assistant Director of Facilities Management