"Nursing staff need to be more organised and..."

I recently underwent a knee arthroscopy at The Winterborne hospital.

The surgeon & anaesthetist were very professional, polite & respectful. I felt listened to and my questions were answered. I had total confidence in them.

However, unfortunately this was not my experience of the nursing staff both at the pre-operative assessment and during my inpatient stay.

There was a total lack of consideration to my particular needs or medical difficulties and some of the staff were just rude.

On numerous occasions I was completely ignored.

The nursing staff were unorganised to the extent that after arriving at 7am as an inpatient I had seen my surgeon, signed the consent form, had been visited by the anaesthetist to discuss my anaesthetic & then was called to theatre at the time I was told by the surgeon he was expecting to do my operation- BUT I had not been seen by any nursing staff so was not ready for theatre and a mad unorganised rush ensued to check as much on the notes as possible, quick observations, stocking on, clothes off, gown on, & red allergy alert name-band on wrist before I could go to theatre whilst the surgeon & anaesthetist just waited for me.

Post-op I waited 20 minutes for someone to even come to my room when I rang the bell, i felt talked down to & they had there own agenda which did not involve listening to my wishes. I do not know if this was due to one particular nurse or the whole team.

And Why did I spend ages filling in the pre-operative form/questionare & offering to give it to the staff at the pre-op appointment but was told it needed to come into hospital with me for the nurses but who then didn’t want it or at least didn’t ask for it. Maybe because they hadn’t enough time...

It still remains in my bag at home.

I was given medicine to take home which was listed on my allergy list I had brought from my GP, luckily this was changed when the pharmacist listened to me & double checked what I could have.