"The care received and the surgery. ..."

What I liked

The care received and the surgery. Speed of surgery from admsission to a&e/CDU.

The food was not so bad for such a big organisation.

What could be improved

Communication between members of the nursing team. Everything seemed to be operating at an unbelieveably slow pace and things were simply not passed on the patient such as discharge times and why his prescription took over five hours. Not passing on information to patients about timings of things leads to a lot of distress and can make them quite frustrated and angry.

General telephone manner when calling a ward, simple please/thank you and not an almost agressive/confrontational stance that was taken when I called about a patient.

The CDU was in a bad state. They left the patient from a bike accident in the same top he was admitted in overnight, this was covered in blood and soil. The paint and plaster was falling off the walls and the area was not clean with things on the floor and dirty sheets.

Name tags - either get them electronically printed or checked by two nurses. The patient was sent to surgery from with two bands (one on each wrist)and both had different numbers. A diligent anaesthatist spotted this luckily which gave me very little confidence in procedure and competance of the administration. This could have been very serious!

Anything else?

Some smiles and a less confrontational attitude from some members of staff. We are highly educated people and although the patient looked visually damaged due to a vehicle accident this does not make him stupid.

Pleases and thank yous were often lacking.