"We're happy with the care, we'd just like the doctors to have more confidence in making decisions"

Our son (who's 4 years old) was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukeamia (ALL) in March of last year, we've been coming to the Royal Manchester Children's hospital since then. We come here once a week on average.

It just feels like our routine now, we get on with it, and our son copes with it very well - he doesn't really think anything of coming because he's very young.

We've generally been very impressed with the care he's received. In terms of the clinical side of things, the nursing staff and the treatment he's had, we have no complaints at all.

As a suggestion, we think it'd be good if there were opportunities to speak to other parents, people who've been through what we're now experiencing. It'd be really useful being able to talk it through with someone, someone who knows what it's like, and can offer us some reassurance. Our son is very young, but for older children I could also see it being really helpful to have opportunities where they could speak to other children or young adults about what it was like for them. We have support, but it's not like talking to people who understand what this is like.

The staff, nursing and consultants especially, have been brilliant, I can't think of a single thing I could complain about. However, we have sometimes found that the doctors have seemed reluctant to make decisions. They've been far more distanced than the other staff, and on one occasion we needed the doctor to make a decision about our son's care - and he was only on the other side of the room, it took him hours to come and speak to us. We appreciate they're busy, but this seems silly. Some of the doctors have just seemed to have a lack of confidence when it comes to making decisions. That's the last thing you want as a parent, you need to be able to put your trust in the staff taking care of your child, you need to feel you're in safe hands.

Other than that, everything's gone well and we've had good experiences at the hospital.