"Not much!"

What I liked

Not much!

What could be improved

I arrived with my elderly year old husband by taxi, bringing a wheelchair and a small folding walking frame. I need the wheelchair to get him around, as he cannot walk the enormous hospital, much less the front concourse from road to entrance, which is roughly the length of two average house gardens. Why so much frontage? I would like to leave the wheelchair at home and use one of the hospital wheeled chairs, which are kept in Reception, but could not safely leave my husband standing with just a frame while I raced to Reception on the offchance I would be able to obtain a chair. He has a balance problem and would probably fall while I was gone. What's needed is for the chairs to be housed outside near the kerbside, under cover and also under lock and key when necessary.

Then you are faced with a huge 'Morrisons-like' revolving entrance door. How sensible is that for the elderly, disabled, and children? It's madness! The sensors on the door continually stop it revolving, and it is quite a dangerous experience trying to negotiate it with a wheelchair in a crowd of people. What's wrong with normal doors?

Anything else?

The entrance door to the Path Lab blood taking cubicles is barely adequate for wheelchair access. There is a second part to the door which facilitates a wider entrance, but this is kept locked from the inside, so the unsuspecting carer has a real battle to access the department unless a member of staff comes to help.

The corridors to the wards have several sets of unrelenting sets of double doors which are not automatic, thus it's a real hassle to navigate each set of doors with a wheelchair.

Ambulances and cars see fit to park directly in front of dropped kerbs at the front of the building. There should be 'no parking' stripes in front of the dropped kerbs.

The main restaurant on the ground floor is not wheelchair friendly in the seating area. Several tables and chairs need to be removed to give good wheelchair access. The food is very poor and uninviting, a great deterioration in quality in my experience, and the assistants who serve up the food need lessons in presentation skills.