"A very friendly, caring and supportive..."

What I liked

I was at the hospital for a hysterectomy and over the years I have heard friends and colleagues complain about the hospital, so I was a little apprehensive.

I thought my doubts were going to be confirmed when I arrived on the ward at the time I had been given only to be told that there was no bed available - despite me having confirmed with the operations dept only an hour earlier...... however, I was eventually given a bed about 30 minutes before going to theatre which in retrospect was probably a good thing as it gave me something to focus on other than the operation.

I was brought back onto the ward in the early evening, but was unfortunately being sick a lot after the operation but the nurses on the ward were amazing - from what little I can remember of that night I seemed to be receiving constant care from them.

I spent 3 days on Ward 12 and I can honestly say that almost the whole experience was positive - the nursing staff are just brilliant - nothing is ever too much trouble for them and to witness their forebearing with some difficult patients and relatives was a masterclass in diplomacy!!

Even the daily visits by the Consultant and Registrar were early in the day so any questions or concerns could be dealt with quickly instead of sitting around wondering.

I found the trepidation I felt before my admission was completely unfounded and I would have no qualms about recommending the hospital to friends and relatives.

What could be improved

I'm not sure why, but there seemed to be a few patients that were moved to Ward 12 from elsewhere in the hospital and this seemed to take place either late in the evening or during the night, so it was a bit difficult to sleep, especially when one of the patients was connected to a monitor which seemed to bleep every few minutes - it may be better from the point of view of other patients to have a cut-off time of perhaps 7 or 8pm for anything other than emergency transfers.

Anything else?

On the whole the staff were amazing, however, there was one ward orderly who seemed to be in an extremely bad mood for the entire duration of her shift. No matter how polite or friendly you tried to be it was almost impossible to even get eye contact let alone a smile or cheerful word - at times I felt that I was almost an inconvenience to her by asking for a cup of tea, but it was only that one member of staff.