"I returned home from a one night ..."

What I liked

I returned home from a one night stay at Princess Alexandra Hospital on 8 June 09 having been admitted via A & E following an attack of SVT. I wrote to the Chief Executive and asked him to pass on to both the A & E department and the Cardio Care Unit my enormous appreciation of the extremely high level of care I received during my stay. I counted up the members of staff that I came into contact with during the 24 hour period I was there and it topped 35. Without exception, from the porter to the consultant cardiologist, they all treated me with respect, courtesy and friendliness, and their combined attitude and professionalism made my experience in hospital a good one.

No one likes to have to go to hospital, but the high level of training that the staff had obviously undertaken made a huge difference to what could have been a far more traumatic event in my life.

What could be improved

The man servicing the telephone/tv units round the beds went from one to another touching the handsets and equipment without any evidence of washing his hands - seemed a high risk of transferring infection from patient to patient.