"Our journey from A&E to Blossom"

We came into A&E last night as my son was having breathing difficulties and needed put on nebs and inhalers. Everything has been fine since we got to blossom and at the minute it is just ongoing observations and monitoring, hopefully we hear soon about when we will be getting home. The staff are all great and the ward has been spotless since we came here. I was a bit disappointed to hear they no longer provided parents with meals here, and it was only the children. Apparently they stopped this last year. When we had been in A&E for 8 hours with nothing to eat or drink it was good to be offered some tea and toast etc. but sadly no solid meals which is sort of poor. We did feel safe in terms of COVID even when the hospital is getting bad again, but the staff do all they can to protect you. The communication between myself and the staff is good and explained well all the time so it is clear to us what will happen.

The only thing I would criticize is when we were in A&E we found Doctors plans for care seemed to change whenever the shift change happened and a new doctor started for the night. This was a little frustrating as we were told after 1 hour we would be updated on the plans for treatment, but then that Dr went home and we were then told we would have to wait another hour and may be waiting in A&E until 2am instead of being admitted here. It was frustrating to be sitting and still unware what was going to happen because of a difference in opinion from the Dr that had just came on. Thankfully we were eventually admitted to Blossom for the night. There just seemed to be a gap in communication from the handover to the next shift.