"Experience as an inpatient on Neurosurgical wards"

I have very recently been admitted to the N wards at RHH for microdiscectomy. The standard of care and professional behaviour and caring attitudes demonstrated towards me by my Consultant in Neurosurgery, Mr Jellinek, and many members of his team was, in my opinion, outstanding. This includes members of the nursing team and other colleagues who delivered care with warmth, kindness and compassion, and one staff nurse in particular was so extremely kind and helped me to feel more at ease when I was feeling very worried and vulnerable. I also work for the NHS as a health professional directly involved in clinical care of patients on a daily basis (albeit in a different Trust) and am particularly mindful of what helps patients to feel comfortable, relaxed and confident in the care which they receive and this can only be helpful for wellbeing and recovery.

My experience was a little marred by the attitudes of a couple of members of staff, neither of whom were medics nor nursing staff, but were involved in patient care; in one case, the staff member appeared to lack warmth and demonstrated little interest in my concerns, or indeed enthusiasm for their role, and appeared to express some criticis of aspects of resources on the ward to a colleague whilst I was receiving care directly from this individual and in their presence. In the other case, a member of staff appeared rather abrupt and, following a brief and slightly unfriendly conversation with me, proceded to make my bed alongside their colleague whilst speaking with them about an entirely unrelated matter (I cannot even recall whether the conversation was work-related or not) whilst I sat in the chair next to the bed. We were, at that time, the only three individuals in the bay. After making the bed and continuing to talk amongst themselves and effectively ignoring me, these staff members then walked off with no further word- I realised they were going when I saw them walk away!

Although these may seem somewhat trivial matters and the great majority of care received by staff was amazing, these small encounters left me feeling that I was a pain in the neck and a nuisance and I found myself continually apologising for this. I am also aware that I am a rather wimpy patient in some ways but spinal surgery for me, both practically and from the psychological point of view, is quite a big deal for me. I am self aware that the experience and pain of my condition itself over the past 3 weeks has been awful and I basically feel rather pathetic and vulnerable and perhaps rather more sensitive than usual to the behaviour of others - BUT, at the moment I am the patient receiving care and not the clinician delivering my care (and I recognise quite difficult at times to change roles!!), and would have hated to feel that my behaviour towards my own patients ever made them feel upset due to a lack of caring compassion and I believe this can only be unhelpful for individual recovery but also, in probable likelihood, unhelpful for staff team working and morale too which may also affect patient care on a wider scale - perhaps the potential impact of behaviour is not recognised or underestimated by a small minority of staff.

However, as stated, the majority of care was fabulous and I am so very appreciative of this.