"Excellent treatment at A&E at Alexandra Hospital Redditch for my Mum."

I just wanted to compliment the A&E department and the Cardiology Ward for the excellent treatment and care my Mum received last weekend after I had to bring her in with a raging pulse and high BP.

Right from the first moment we arrived at A&E we were treated swiftly and professionally. My mother wondered why I was fussing about getting her to A&E so quickly and felt a bit of a fraud, and really felt she was wasting the time of the nurse who first saw her to do her ECG. The nursing staff made her and myself feel recognised for our concerns, and were not in the least dismissive in their treatment. It turned out I had good reason for being concerned about her as she was in "SVT" and she was soon sorted out with heart stopping drugs, getting her heart back in normal rhythm.

Whilst waiting for a bed to be found on the Coronary Care ward my mother needed help with going to the toilet, and nurses appeared immediately when I asked for help. You hear such horror stories of patients being left for ages in need of help but this was not the case here.

At all stages of my mothers care I was kept informed as to what was going on and the move from the A&E to the ward was very swift.

This was the second time in the last 12 months I have been in A&E here as I was there previously with my father when he had a bleeding incident last September. Living on the edge of Solihull this is actually a quicker option for A&E services for us than going to Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham.

My experience as a concerned relative has renewed my faith in the NHS, and as a former NHS employee I am now considering retraining as a nurse and coming to work for the NHS again myself.

We hear so much bad press about the NHS nowadays, I want to say a big thank you to everybody in the department and express my hope that A&E services remain in Redditch and are not contracted elsewhere.

The department really does a good job in difficult times!

Thank you all.