"My toddlers Stay on Paddington Ward, Northampton General Hospital"

My toddler , was admitted with pneumonia. The care was mixed, I feel some of the nurses were very good, some were quite short and stroppy, some were quite open about being short staffed and not able to cope. I think the doctors were generally good and approached the children well and the physio's we were involved with were also very good.

One of the best teams was the play team, they were keen to provide appropriate levels of activity for the age of each child and the ability of the child.

There were some negatives about our short stay.

On the first day at we were told that my toddler needed antibiotics. We Didn't get them until 12hrs later on day two, the wait was due to lack of staff to insert a canula. That is not acceptable.

I was told by a nurse that my toddlers breathing had rapidly increased, however, it turned out that the nurse was reading someone else's chart and recording my childs observations in it.

On the day of discharge, we were told in the morning that we could go home. We then waited until the evening for medications. A wait of 7 hours for a small child and a tired family is completely unacceptable.

We recognise that there are policies in place and that the pharmacy covers a wide area, but we had offered to get the medications from our local pharmacy, or to pop and pick it up from the hospital pharmacy ourselves, but were not allowed. It left us feeling frustrated and quite angry whilst dealing with a toddler with more energy who just wanted to go home and play!