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Day Surgery

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"Day Surgery"

About: St Mary's Hospital (Newport)

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My husband went in for an iguinal hernia operation last week - it was a day case under general anaesthetic. He was anxious about the anaesthetic having had a bad reaction many years ago. He said the anaesthetic was excellent and all went very well. The surgeon and his assistant came round both before and after the operation - very efficient and friendly. Before and after care in the day was very good - nurse assigned to him was efficient and attentive. Even offered myself and my son a cup of tea when we came to collect him. My only criticism is telephone communication at the reception in the day surgery unit. The day before my husband phoned mid afternoon to ask a question - always the phone just rang rang and it took an hour until some answered. I had the same experience when I phoned during the afternoon between 2 and 3 p.m. on the day of his operation both telephone numbers just rang and rang and again it took me more than half an hour to get through - NOT good when you are anxious about a loved one having an operation and want to know if all went well - and in fact no one ever answered at around 4.30 when I was told to ring to see about collection and eventually at 5.15 I just decided to drive over to see if he was ready.

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Responses

Response from Head of Patient Experience, Isle of Wight NHS Trust 10 years ago
Isle of Wight NHS Trust

Submitted on 17/01/2014 at 10:51
Published on Care Opinion at 16:26

Thank you for your comments that have been shared with the Ward manager who joins me in thanking you for the positive feedback and assure you that all comments are shared and discussed with the relevant teams.

In relation to the difficulty you had with contacting the Day surgery ward please accept our apologies that you experienced difficulty in speaking to a member of staff.

The Day Surgery Ward is a very busy unit having between 40/50 people a day, it

has two telephones at the reception desk which are manned by ward clerks till 16.30 unfortunately, at times of sickness or a/l this time is shortened and these may only be manned till 13.00, which may have been the situation on this day.

The normal procedure would be to transfer the telephones through to the day surgery ward area so the nurses can then answer the calls. It appears that on this occasion this may not have happened causing prolonged delays and distress to relatives.

We would like to assure you that spot checks are undertaken on the ward to see how long it takes for staff to answer the phone as well as the telephone manner of the person answering to ensure quality. The Ward Manager will ensure that this is fed back to staff to remind them to ensure the process is followed, and will continue to monitor it on a regular basis.

Thank you for taking time to post this feedback, which is extremely useful and essential for improving the patient and public experience.

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