"nothing"

We are disappointed that you did not have a good experience when you visited the QEII recently. While our explanations cannot undo those experiences, they may go some way to explaining what may have gone wrong:

1) Blood test clinic – this part of the Trust has some of the greatest numbers of patients using it compared to nearly any other part of the hospital. While staffing can be an issue from time-to-time, the real challenge is the number of people who choose to come to hospitals like the Lister for simple blood tests. What many do not realise is that there are often easier alternatives in specialist clinics set up in health centres and community hospitals closer to where people live. For an up-to-date listing of these blood testing clinics, please go to our website pages at:

http://www.enherts-tr.nhs.uk/Ourclinical_services/Blood%20tests.php?group=3

2) Rating methodology – this website is run by the national NHS Choices team, not the Trust. We agree with your comments and will feed them back to the national NHS Choices team.

3) Switchboard – we have more than enough lines coming in to the Trust to deal with most call levels. Occasionally, however, one or more of these lines can go down or develop faults without our knowledge. Whenever people who contact our switchboard tell us about their problem in getting through, we can then get the telephone company to investigate – which they do very quickly.