"Overall staff in the out-patients ..."

What I liked

Overall staff in the out-patients dept were very helpful and considerate.

What could be improved

Personally found the rooms provided for examination depressing due to them being small and windowless. May seem picky, but the choice of colour can make a big difference and an upbeat picture or poster wouldn't go amiss.

The MRI Suite I think you call is an experience I would not wish to repeat. The waiting room is cold, unfriendly and pokey. My wife is disabled and found it very uncomfortable to sit on those seats. She was not told how long I would be in the dept and was therefore reluctant to go anywhere to get a drink or get warm! The shutters on what was supposed to be reception are left down making the place look temporary and generally badly designed - almost an after-thought. The patient changing area was equally cold, unpleasant and inhospitable. I was called through far to early, told to change prematurely and left to sit on a hard bench, naked if the nurse had had his way (I kept my underwear on because of the coldness) apart from the universally awful gown.

People visiting this dept for examination are there for what could be (and proved to be in my case) a very serious condition and being left in a nasty, cold, uncomfortable cubicle listening to the comings and goings and general chit chat of staff and other patients, whilst being kept uninformed does nothing for ones levels of anxiety.

Without a doubt this is probably one of the most physically unpleasant dept I have encountered in what is supposed to be a relatively modern hospital and it very clearly gives the impression that nobody thought about the impact on patients or those accompanying them.

If I require any sort of follow-up examination I will be seriously thinking on how I might get this done elsewhere.