"Poor communication at QMC"

In October '08, I had a colonoscopy at the Queen's Medical Centre.

Most of the staff were good, but there were some problems. When challenged by a patient, the reception staff immediately fell back on the 'we will not be intimidated, bullied or abused' response, instead of trying to deal with the problem effectively. From what I saw, skills at dealing with difficulties on behalf of patients appeared completely lacking. There seems to be a definite 'them and us' mentality apparent at this hospital.

When you get into one-to-one situations, the care got better. The staff were happy to answer questions and explore issues then.

There were a lot of staff around for the number of patients. The staff I saw treated the waiting areas as if they were staff common rooms, chatting to one another and leaving patients to feel ignored and overlooked.

I was a bit shaken after my first treatment, but was given no recovery time before I was sent home.