"High degree of collabortation"

Two outpt visits re eyes. Very pleasant and efficient staff, excellent assessments and little or no overlap, indicating high degree of collaboration in the team. Specialist who trusts his staff and does the things that only he can do. Computer system helps with that to some extent but about 99% of it looked to be excellent collaboration. My visits consisted of seeing a nurse, a scan tech, an optometrist and finally the surgeon. I also note that my inpatient care for cataract surgery was excellent and same comments apply with addition of a very calming atmosphere in the operating theatre. Surgery was done by a specialist trainee with the consultant in the OT and the trainee seemed to do a first class job. He was calm and quietly confident. I’m a doctor with a lot of years behind and wide experience in various fields so I have some sense of how things should go with surgery. I could not fault any stage of the surgical process. 

I spoke with various staff on the phone and could not get over how pleasant and helpful they all were. I know they are run off their feet and they must be at least a bit discouraged after years of underfunding but none of that comes across.

Waiting time was wayyy less than I expected. I had even explored private care in two different NI clinics, two different Dublin clinics and Moorfields hospital in London but in the end when I took thoroughness of care and wait times into account our good old NHS was streets ahead. Of the avenues I explored outside the RVH service, particular praise is due to Janet, consultant eye surgeon in Altnagelvin who spent at least 20 minutes on the phone advising me on the best course. 

I note here that while I just had cataract surgery and as such my case might seem very straightforward, in fact there were some very major complicating factors. 

I also had a pre op assessment by the ophthalmology nursing team in the Downe hospital and was very impressed with that too. 

Suggestions—-blue sky thinking!!! The RVH buildings I was in are getting old but not to the extent of having priority in funding rounds. New premises = nice to have. 

The staff all deserve a real good pay rise and major changes to improve their working lives.