"The consummate professional"

Dear Jemima

Thank you for your feedback. I am grateful for your kind words. Although we seem to have got a lot right, and you seem to be on the road to recovery, clearly there's room for improvement, especially around the length of your stay and the information you received during your stay.

Regarding your need for transfer to Lothian, we are working hard to develop local pacemaker implantation services. We currently have a limited capacity but your story has illustrated why it's important we expand on this. I'm going to highlight this to my colleagues and service management team.

As far as your medical treatments, we should have supplied you with better information, and in a format that's right for you. I'm going to speak with ward staff to work out how we can help you with the information you need about medicines. I've been in touch with the British Heart Foundation and Arrhythmia Alliance to ask about resources for the visually impaired. Currently there doesn't seem to be very much available so I have asked them if they will work with me on providing information about pacemakers in alternative formats. I'll post again to let you know how I get on.

I am really sorry you've been kept waiting at device clinic appointments. While unpredictable delays might occur occasionally, I am really disappointed to hear that you have been affected by this. We need to fix this and I'll discuss an improvement plan with my colleagues.

Thanks again for your helpful comments. We really appreciate the time you've taken to get in touch. Please continue to let us know about your future experiences. I'm hoping you'll see some improvements!

With best wishes

Catherine

Dear Jemina

Thank you very much for sharing your feedback with us and like Catherine I wanted to say thank you for sharing your experiences, particularly what went well and giving us some ideas where we could make some improvements.

I have shared your feedback with my cardiology colleagues in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. I do hope that you didn't need to spend too long at the Royal Infirmary and were able to be transferred back to Forth Valley quickly and be closer to your family and friends.

I hope that you are well on the road to recovery and thank you again for sharing your feedback with us.

With best wishes

Jeannette

Thanks Jemina for taking time to tell us and others about your experience.

As well as the positive aspects of your care and treatment I am glad that you are able to offer suggestions and comments that would have improved your overall experience. For the teams in FVRH, we will discuss and see how we look at implementing some changes.

kind regards

Alison

Dear Jemina,

On behalf of all the staff within the Cardiology Ward, we hope you are continuing to recover from your time in hospital.

I appreciate you taking the time to give us your feedback from your experience.

As my colleagues have commented, you have provided us with comments that we can take forward to improve our service.

Take care of yourself.

Regards

Carolyn

Dear Jemina

I thought I would update you on how we have acted on your feedback. We have made some revisions to our patient information including looking at how we might get large print versions of patient information leaflets. We have not yet been successful in working with our colleagues from charities to develop the auditory format you mentioned. But we do have access to an ipad and have identified some content there, some which would be suitable for people with impairment of vision, and some which would be suitable for people with impairment of hearing.

My colleagues were very disappointed to hear that you had been kept waiting. That's unusual for our devices clinics although we do still struggle little with waits in some of our cardiology outpatient clinics. Based on your feedback I have been able to emphasise to staff how unpleasant it is to have to wait and we are working hard to improve this.

The device clinic has been successful around this and it is now even more unusual for patients to have to wait for this service. We are also working on increasing our "remote" follow up, using technology to examine your device from the comfort of your own home.

Thank you again for your feedback. It has helped us improve and we are continuing to try to improve further still.

With best wishes

Catherine