"Not sure, if the scan will be clear and sufficient"

Dear Ton11

I must confess to being rather confused by your rather strong comments and extremely disappointed that you call our hospital unprofessional and feel you cannot recommend our hospital based on your visit.

Firstly I am delighted that you arrived early as so often people are late for their appointment or sometimes do not even show up at all, so thank you.

When you booked in at the reception desk the Sonographer (the person performing the scan) would have been informed of your arrival and if they happen to be running a little ahead of schedule then, to benefit patients, it is normal practice to bring someone through earlier if appropriate. I have never, until this day, had a complaint that someone was actually seen early. In your case, the sonographer had seen your referral request already and deemed it completely appropriate to bring you through early.

I have spoken to the sonographer and he has assured me that everything that was requested in your referral was absolutely able to be scanned appropriately and clearly and that your report is already written in full.

When scanning for kidney stones it is not always necessary for your bladder to be completely full as they are scanning your kidneys, not your bladder. You do of course need to be well hydrated which is why you are asked to drink plenty and if at any point any sonographer could not obtain a clear image of what is requested and they felt that the drinking of more water would aid the imaging then they would ask you to return to the waiting room to drink more.

There is absolutely nothing to be gained from a sonographer producing poor images as it would simply result in you having to be rescanned another day - that would have wasted both their time and yours. So on this note, I can assure you that your time was not wasted and all images requested were obtained and reported on. So whether you now need to go on for a different type of imaging base on your ultrasound scan results will be up to your GP.

Just for your information the imaging service (x-ray and Ultrasound) here at Clevedon is provided and run by North Bristol Trust (Southmead Hospital) not Clevedon.

I am very disappointed that you refer to our hospital as unprofessional and considering that you had an appointment, were not kept waiting at all and in fact were seen early and had an appropriate scan perfectly in line with the request made by your GP and that the results are already on their way back to your GP two days later, I am very confused as to what else we could have done for you.

If you can please tell me what else we could have done for you then I would be very interested to know so that we can aim to improve our service further?

However should you now feel that, following my explanation, you would like to withdraw your negative comments then you can do so by clicking on the 'report this post' section and asking for it to be removed. They will know that you are the original author and will remove it at your request. We would appreciate it as I and all of the staff are proud of our hospital and the services we provide.

If you would like to discuss this further then please do not hesitate to contact me on

m.croughan@nhs.net

Regards

Matt