"The professionalism, care, expertise, friendliness and compassion was above and beyond what I had expected!"

I had surgery on pancreas to remove an insulinoma at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

I cannot thank all the staff at GRI for the outstanding care I received during my stays in GRI (5 weeks out of the last 6.5 weeks) during the initial surgery and then treatment for several follow-on complications. The professionalism, care, expertise, friendliness and compassion was above and beyond what I had expected! The surgery has been successful and although I’ve had complications, I’m starting to feel back to my old self.

All the staff always took time to explain what they were doing, what other options could be, and the relative merits of the various options so I always felt involved and consulted in my treatment and care.

Specific staff I would like to thank for their care, professionalism and time to just take a short chat in a really busy working day (there were lots of others, I’m afraid I can’t remember their names) are:

The pancreatic surgery team – Mr Dickson and Miss Coates, Rebecca and Venla and the rest of the team – I knew the surgery should alleviate my symptoms, but I didn’t expect it to get rid of them entirely – Thank-you!

Surgical HDU: Scott, Stuart and Rachel. The lady who collected bloods every morning, always had a cheery word and a great bit of banter.

Ward 65: Tiffany, Alec, Emma and Nikki

ITU: Jen, Susanne

ESU: Cathy, Javier, Eleanor, Amy and Katie. Also to the GCU trainees in their final year – what a credit you are, very professional, caring, interested in the patients, their stories, what is wrong with them and their treatments. I’m sure you will be do very well in the future.

To all the other staff who keep the hospital going - the porters, cleaners, catering staff, and those who keep the stocks full in the wards…. Thank-you, you are the unsung heroes who do a great job often with a smile and a bit of chat that cheers up patients more than you realise!

Areas to improve – some of these points are based on improvements we have made in my work that have delivered significant improvements:

•Automation of data recording of e.g. blood pressure through the increased use of Internet of things (IoT) would save nursing staff a lot of time and reduce transcription errors. Automation could also be used to flag trends and readings of concern

•Procedures for patients leaving hospital are slow, both myself and one other patient in my ward stayed in hospital one more night than was necessary

•For 2 days I had my wound drain tubes clamped shut using large metal clamps. They did the job, but were heavy and painful hanging off the tubes and discouraged any movement when in bed.