"Nightmare place"

Dear Mark

I am sorry we have not responded sooner – your posting has only just reached us due technical issues with Patient Opinion. They will be writing their own posting about it.

I am very sorry to hear about the negative experience you had on Ward One at Springfield Hospital. Often people are admitted to Ward One when they are particularly unwell as it is an intensive care unit and sometimes the environment and atmosphere on the ward can be disturbed. All staff strive to do their best to develop a therapeutic and beneficial relationship with their clients in this context but I am sorry that this was not your experience of the ward. I have fed back your comments to the ward manager.

High staffing numbers are required on the Ward and it does from time to time need to make use of agency staff who work alongside the permanent staff. All agency staff are expected to abide by their code of professional conduct and are fully supported by the permanent ward staff.

I would like to apologise that you felt that there was a lack of respect on the ward for you and your fellow patients. Staff on Ward One recognise the views of the clients and always seek to involve them in decisions about their care. Inevitably, as all clients admitted to Ward One are detained under a Section of the Mental Health Act, there can be disagreement between staff who feel clinically that it is appropriate for a patient to be on the ward and patients themselves who may not agree that they should be detained. This can come up between staff and patients when discussing care plans and treatment options. Due to this a patient may feel that their views have not been taken into account for this reason.

The Trust welcomes feedback from patients and as you have mentioned there is a ‘Real time Feedback’ kiosk on the ward. There have been problems with the kiosk in the past so I would like to apologise that you were unable to see the response to any feedback you had left. The kiosk is now up and running once more and the ward has installed a lockable notice board which gives updates on changes that have been made on the ward as a result of feedback provided by clients.

Many thanks for raising your concerns. If there is anything you would like to discuss further or if you would like any issues to be dealt with more formally then please contact our me at complaintsmanager@swlstg-tr.nhs.uk

Dear Mark,

I wanted to quickly come on and add our apologies here at Patient Opinion. As Victoria says above the delay in the posting coming onto the site was due to a technical glitch between us and NHS Choices. This meant that the trust have not been able to respond until now.

Best wishes

tim