"Poor admission procedure"

I had to take my husband to the Princess Royal Hospital, Telford, for day surgery to his shoulder.

He received no pre-op. guidance about what to expect after the surgery nor any map to help us to find the right place to go. The admission letter simply instructed him to telephone at 8.00 a.m to find out whether a bed was available. When he finally got through at 8.10 a.m the person who answered the phone said she shouldn't have been there anyway and didn't know anything about it although his admission was subsequently confirmed.

As it was unclear where we should report to once we had arrived at the hospital, we waited for some time in two different 'wrong' places while staff sorted out where we should go.

It appeared that in order to reduce his waiting list, the surgeon had a supplementary list and was using beds in a different ward from usual. Whilst appreciating the fact that the surgery was undertaken within the designated time scale, reception staff appeared not to have been given this information, hence the confusion. In the event, his surgery was carried out late in the afternoon after what seemed like an unnecessarily long starvation period. During that time he was asked the same questions umpteen times when it would obviously have been more efficient and less bothersome to him if a single registration process could have been undertaken.