"Very Good For Children"

My daughter was transferred here after lazy/late diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes from another hospital, resulting in her spending the first 48 hours in critical care and us being gently prepared for a possible unthinkable outcome. Wonderfully for us and thanks to the brilliance of the Paediatric Critical Care team she is still with us and still under the care of The Royal London. I am very happy with this hospital and their care of my daughter over the past 3 years. If she is admitted the care is very good and her 3 monthly review clinic it thorough and caring. They are regularly reviewing and implementing new procedures, involving patients and carers in how to improve the department, running courses, going on courses, putting families in touch with each other and in touch with support groups for the condition. The out of hours care is also very good, I can speak to one of the consultants in a relative emergency in the middle of the night. The Children's A&E is also very good, very clean, friendly and generally slick (depending on how busy they are), but even when they are busy they never feel like other children's A&E's I have been to. They feel calm and there is space to take your child to a bed/corner/room to settle them. You are never crammed in. Generally the hospital staff work very well together, I feel there is a very good level of communication. I have always felt involved in decisions made (bar one time with a member of staff involved with my daughter's long term care who is no longer at the hospital) and feel my opinion counts. It's a while since my daughter has been admitted and I can't remember if the accommodation was same-sex or not. I don't remember it being an issue though. There are certainly less beds per ward than there used to be and more space around the beds. Getting discharged from the hospital in 2012, like all hospitals, was a tearing hair out yawn, but it might be better now.