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Pre-op assessment

Posted By GILLYSAN89

"Pre-op assessment"

About: Nightingale Hospital Exeter / South West Ambulatory Orthopaedic Centre

(as the patient),

Overall experience marred by communication issues, both printed handouts supplied and verbal info on the day.

Travel information supplied poor; bus from Sowton does not run at weekends - not mentioned on printed handout, did not occur to check online; also, error on timetable.

Phone line on letter unmanned so could not check Sat buses from ParknRide.

Once arrived (by car), directed to main reception although tried to access Surgical.

Struggled round there, sent back to enter by car park, where had been trying to go in first place.

Consequently BP was very high. Sodium slightly low which did not help BP as was concerned about that as well as being stressed from the travel debacle. Can you imagine if my husband had dropped me at the ParknRide and gone off for a couple of hours?

Staff kind and very efficient; department spotless; entire visit took about an hour, plus walking.

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Responses

Response from Helen Bowmer, Admin Services Manager (Eastern Services), Nightingale Hospital, Exeter (Eastern Services), Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust 2 days ago
Helen Bowmer
Admin Services Manager (Eastern Services), Nightingale Hospital, Exeter (Eastern Services),
Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 09/07/2025 at 18:38
Published on Care Opinion at 18:38

picture of Helen Bowmer

Dear GILLYSAN89,

I am one of the managers at the Nightingale. I am very sorry that you had such a torrid time before arriving with us. I have sent your feedback on so we can discuss it in our Operational Touchpoint. I will come back to you with any changes that we are going to implement. Again, I am sorry that this was not a good experience.

I am pleased that once you were here the staff treated you with kindness.

Kind regards,

Helen Bowmer

Admin Services Manager

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful

Update posted by GILLYSAN89 (the patient)

Thanks for your kind reply, Helen.
We left home in N Devon at 8.30, arrived at 10 for the 10.30 bus (!), and I sat waiting in the car until 10.20. When I read the timetable at the bus stop, thought was going mad!

Also there were no wheelchairs for use - I was able to manage under my own steam, but for certain other patients it wold have simply been impossible to get round to the main reception without one. All the doors were shut, so being directed round the corner was not implausible. Both points - possibly because it was the weekend?

Would suggest reviewing signage inc. what to do at weekends. Also amending printed handouts re: ParknRide - highlighting no weekend bus service, and perhaps also emphasising this online? I only looked at the website after the event - there didn't seem any point beforehand as we had the handouts.

Sorry to bang on - unfortunately (for you) I used to work in London in comms, and spent >10 years on government comms. We always had to be aware of the needs of different audiences, viusally impaired etc. Going now - thx again.

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