"I was impressed by the nursing ..."

What I liked

I was impressed by the nursing staff who on the whole remained polite, professional and friendly even though there appeared to be occasional staffing problems. The 4-bed, same sex ward was clean, welcoming and had its own shower and toilet facilities.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food. Considering the bad press hospital food gets there was plenty of choice on the daily menus and the overall standard was good. However, the gap between the evening meal at 6pm to breakfast the following morning at 8am shows a complete lack of consideration, particularly for non mobile patients. In light of the recent report showing an all time high for the number of patients leaving UK hospitals with malnutrition, a 14 hour gap between meals is unacceptable.

What could be improved

1: All patients must be given the choice of a light snack and a hot drink in the evening. They shouldn’t have to ask for this, it should be standard practice. 2: I'm sure patients would feel better informed if on admission they were given a leaflet containing information covering their stay, similar to the information many hospitals publish on their website: Giving Consent, Named nurse, Hospital amenities, Meal times, Visiting times, Making a Complaint etc. 3: From what I saw the attitude towards elderly patients was mixed. A small minority of nurses seemed brusque and occasionally disrespectful. Irrespective of the pressures nurses are under this was unforgivable. 4: On discharge from hospital the information and advice I received relating to my condition was virtually nil. It was the same for a number of other patitents and we all felt this was unsatisfactory.