"My experience in Southern Trust"

The staff on the trauma ward are always very good, they are hard-working, kind and caring. Especially in times like this they are always making sure you don’t feel lonely. The support staff and cleaning staff are also so helpful. They really aren’t valued enough by the trust, they could do with more staff especially at night as they were always flat out. Moreover, everyone introduced themselves, asked how you were doing and were so pleasant to me.

I am always given enough information about my treatments etc., given enough time to think and ask questions. There has been such a team approach regarding my care.

I would like to give recognition to the Ambulance from down south, the coastguard Paddy and the Rapid Response unit who were all so nice and so helpful. Everyone there was so helpful, they provided me which pain relief and all kept calm. It was really great to see the kindness of all the people. Moreover, this ambulance brought me to Daisy Hill but they were willing to go anywhere to provide me with the help I needed.

At Daisy Hill there was a consultant and ward sister waiting at the door for me. The nurse Lewis and Dr Joanne were both so good. Everything was explained so thoroughly to me and I was shown the X-rays of my ankle so I was involved in all decisions regarding treatment.

If I hadn’t of had the care of all these brilliant people the situation would have been so much worse.

I would like to see more sharing of information between hospitals within the same trust. Whenever I arrived in Daisy Hill the nurse had to go through a big booklet of information with me and then when I was transferred to Craigavon area hospital the nurse had to sit and fill out more information with me regarding the same things. This takes time away from face to face care which is essentially the essence of care.