"Exceptional care"

Our father spent the final week of his life in the Christine Brown ward in King's and received the most exceptional care imaginable. He was treated with immense respect and dignity throughout. Despite being elderly and frail and with very limited health prospects, he was treated as a valued and respected patient, every bit as worthy of care as any other patient. This was at every level of care from the consultants who made and communicated each treatment decision with great clarity and empathy (including the decision to end treatment and switch to palliative care), to the nurses who were exceptionally attentive to the ups and downs of his medical state and managed all the details of his care so efficiently, whilst at the same time really engaging with him as a real person, demonstrating sensitivity, respect and very occasionally some much needed, and appropriate, humour. The care in the Christine Brown ward without doubt made what was one of the hardest weeks I have ever gone through bearable. As a family we are all so grateful to the nurses and consultants who looked after not only my father but also us, his family.