"Not impressed by St Lukes Hospital"

I attended the neurophysiology dept with my partner.

Whilst waiting for an appointment we observed a member of staff in uniform who from her discussion clearly worked for the dept, who for 10 minutes leant against a wall talking to the receptionist of the dept about things she was selling on Ebay and also things she had seen on Facebook. This was in full view of ourselves and other patients waiting to be seen.

In addition a member of staff came bustling in with a parcel that had clearly arrived in the department and contined to complain about another member of staff in a different department who had asked for the parcel to be delivered to her, as opposed to her picking it up herself. To talk about another staff member in such a way in front of patients was in my eyes unprofessional particularly as the comments were related to that person as an individual and her behaviour.

Unfortunately when it came to having the nerve conduction test, the needle bent during the intervention and rather than removing it and replacing it, the consultant continued to push the same needle into other parts of the body causing my partner more pain than would normally be required during this intervention and leaving him later with bruising.

When we asked for a copy of the consultant's letter as per DOH guidance we were told that one was not normally provided to patients as it could cause distress if there was bad news in it in terms of diagnosis. There seemed to be no concept from this consultant that actually such a letter may also alleviate concerns if it shows that there are no abnormalities. The fact that we had to assertively ask for a copy of a letter that should be sent to us as a right was totally unacceptable.

All in all, would we use St Lukes Hospital again? Absolutely not.