"Good care for my daughter from GP and staff at Royal Hampshire"

My daughter is 32 and has very complex needs and was going in for an ‘MOT’ as we call it. She was going to have her eyes looked at, her teeth looked at and gynae problems sorted out. Getting all the doctors together is really difficult and mostly I have to do it.

We were given instructions about her going into hospital but it really wasn’t relevant because her needs are so different. So I’m used to ringing up beforehand to make sure everyone knows about her, so she gets a side ward so she doesn’t disturb other people and so on. And the sister said she could drink until 10.00 am but she didn’t say it had to be water, so she had a cup of tea at 10.00.

So we went to the hospital at 13.00 and were going to have an anaesthetic when they realised that she had had some tea. So eventually she went to theatre at 16.00 because they were worried about regurgitating the milky tea so they had to wait. But the positive thing was that they all waited, the ophthalmologist, the gynaecologist and the dentist all stayed around till 16.00 because they could see how difficult it was to get her back in. This was at the Royal Hampshire hospital.

My daughter lives with an in control budget and 24 hours care. The individual budget has just made a huge difference to her life and her health.

The local GP is extremely helpful – I don’t have to take her in, and I can order her prescriptions by email. The GP will talk to me on the phone and she rings me on my mobile at Wickham group surgery.