"Medical staff excellent -- Hospital management..."

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on your experience at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. We are very pleased that you had such a positive experience during the time you were in hospital, in particular with the medical staff associated with your cataract operation, tests and fitting of your hearing aids. Your feedback has been passed to the teams concerned. It is a real morale boost for staff to receive feedback like this from patients. It means such a lot to know that the hard work, dedication and commitment of our staff is recognised and valued in this way. It is also very satisfying for staff to hear they have made such a difference to patients and made sure your experience under our care has been positive. However, we are sorry to hear of your concerns with regards to the road signage which has been feedback to the senior manager responsible who has provided the following information: “One of the main principles that we tried to adhere to when developing the external signage strategy within the Queen Elizabeth site was to keep the signage as simple as possible. There are a number of car parks around the site which can be approached form different directions. To sign all of them would generate so much signage that it could confuse motorists. Therefore, we have concentrated on the main visitor car parks being signed, which are identified on the map sent out with appointment letters and available on the website. We are constantly looking at ways to improve wayfinding around the site, and have involved patient representatives to give their perspective, which has led to many modifications. We will continue to review signage across the whole of the Queen Elizabeth site “. Your comments regarding the lack of notification and information regarding the changes to the Audiology Service have been shared with the Consultant and senior manager for the service who have provided the following comments: “While every effort was made to widely publicise the move of the department the numbers of service users affected was very large and so it was not possible to write to each patient individually. With support from our communications department, ‘We are moving’ flyers were distributed widely. We are sorry that this means that for some patients the information was not received. The new telephone number was also widely distributed, so again, we are sorry if this information did not reach all our patients. Steps are being taken to change the message on the old telephone number to provide more useful information, so we are grateful that this has been brought to our attention. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused”. Thank you once again for providing your feedback. If you would like to discuss further any of your concerns please make contact with our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) team who will be happy to help. PALS can be contacted by phone 0121 371 3280, by email PALS@uhb.nhs.uk , via the hospital website http://www.uhb.nhs.uk/pals-form.htm or in person by dropping in between 9am – 4.30pm (Mon-Fri) to the PALS office located to the left of the Information Desk in the main entrance of the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.