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"Good nursing care but noise nuisance!"

About: Aberdeen Royal Infirmary / General Surgery

(as a relative),

A member of my family was recently admitted to a 6 bedded surgical ward for a very prolonged stay in hospital and throughout that time he was continually disturbed by other patients on their phones. The issue was that these people insisted on having their entire conversation on loud speaker and did not feel the need to put the phone to their ear or use headphones. Not only did they insist on doing this for calls with their friends and family but also to watch videos and use social media. There was no respect of other people in the room and attempts to keep their volume down. Curtains are not exactly soundproof so others around him would have been aware he had just had surgery and had bad news, but still the use of phones on loudspeaker continued well in to the evening as he tried to rest from his operation. On one occasion a patient took a call around midnight and still had it on speaker phone! None of the staff challenged him on this although they were clearly aware it was going on. This behaviour was not confined to one or two individuals as he was in long enough for several patients admitted/discharged and this appeared to be the norm. 

In addition, beds around him were frequently surrounded by groups of visitors when the ward explicitly states two visitors to a bedside. Whilst we were grateful that visiting hours were fairly open throughout the day, maybe there needs to be a return to stricter visiting hours in multi-bedded rooms to allow patients to rest and not continually endure the noise from other people's visitors. In addition, perhaps the use of phones when used without headphones could be confined to these hours in multi-bedded rooms. 

I was disappointed that the staff on the ward did not intervene and allowed these behaviours to continue whilst others around them were trying to recover from surgery. Surely, staff can intervene and advise patients on ward policy on visitors and ask them to abide to this. There also needs to be signage about respectful use of phones so that staff can intervene if this is not being adhered to. Perhaps the ward could keep a stash of cheap headphones that these individuals can purchase for a few pounds to prevent them having phones continually on speaker.

My family member is going to feedback himself about overall care in the ward as he was very grateful to the nurses and medical staff for their care and wanted to separate it from this experience; It's such a shame his whole experience in the ward was blighted by the continual noise and lack of rest. 

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Responses

Response from Linda Carmichael, Nurse Manager, Surgery 2 (Surgical Division), NHS Grampian 6 days ago
Linda Carmichael
Nurse Manager, Surgery 2 (Surgical Division),
NHS Grampian
Submitted on 23/05/2025 at 10:37
Published on Care Opinion at 10:37


picture of Linda Carmichael

Dear pavohz94,

Thank you for your feedback and I'm very sorry to hear that you had such a poor experience on the ward, It is dissapointing to read that you were disturbed by mobile phones and visiting relatives. I have had a chat with the Senior Charge Nurse of the area, who will feed back to staff regarding your comments and we will share your feedback with the whole team. Staff work hard to meet the needs of all patients and I'm sorry that you felt that staff were not doing enough to intervene with the noise. NHS Grampian operates a person centred approach to visiting, meaning people can come and go as they please - however I understand that the volume of visitors we have coupled with the space constraints can be overwhelming when you just want to rest and have some peace and quiet.

Thank you for your kind comments regarding the nursing and medical care - I know postitive feedback is welcomed by all our staff.

I hope your family member is recovering.

Kind regards

Linda Carmichael

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