"Child A&E Excellent"

At 1.20am on Sunday 2nd March we had to visit the Good Hope A&E with our three year old son who was complaining of a lot of pain in his stomach. We live in Kent and were staying locally in a hotel for the night so were ourselves out of our comfort zone. On arrival we gave our details to the lady on reception who was courteous, helpful and professional before being advised to take our son around the corner to the Children's A&E department which I have to say was a welcome surprise in itself, something we have never seen before! We were shown the triage bay and attended to by an excellent Nurse and when I say excellent I mean totally professional, extremely friendly and 100% dedicated to her job! It took a little while for a Doctor to arrive, but this was Saturday night so to be expected, again the Doctor was confident and professional diagnosing our son and setting out a path of treatment. It became necessary to admit our son at 4.15am so we were escorted to the Children's Wards and made welcome and comfortable with our son's treatment being ongoing. A consultant reviewed our son later in the morning and he was discharged at 10.45am in much less pain with two very happy parents. I have read articles about the Good Hope Hospital but have to say that we found the service exemplary, however it was sad to hear from the nurse that the Children's A&E was not a 24 hour operation and only occasionally opens in the evening/night indeed she was on a six to two shift and should have gone home at 2am after closing the department until another member of staff reopened presumably later in the day, but note she escorted us to the Children's Ward just before 4.30 in the morning two and a half hours after her shift finished, dedication or what! So to the management of the trust please note you have some terrific staff, invest in more and look after what you have.