"I liked very little. The nursing ..."

What I liked

I liked very little. The nursing and medical staff worked very hard but are all so obviously cheesed off at being EXTREMELY overworked, that you constantly feel like a nuisance.

What could be improved

Everything could have been better. My daughter was admitted to the Medical Assessment unit following a series of blindingly bad headaches followed by a faint and very heavy nose bleed. For the first 10 hours we sat in the waiting room, she then were 'promoted' to a trolley on the corridor with me (disabled) sat on a plastic chair for the next 24 hours. We were then put in an office where my daughter laid on a treatment couch with me on an office chair. In that room there were blood stained swabs and used needles on the trolley. They were there for at least another 24hrs as were we. We left the swabs and the office behind then and my daughter was given a bed. It was now 7pm and two and a half days into our ordeal. I asked staff if it would be a good time to pop home (10 miles away) for a shower and a change of clothes as they assured me that no futher tests or treatments would be done until the following day. As I reached home I received a phone call from my hysterical daughter saying that as soon as I stepped off the ward, the medical staff had performed a lumbar puncture on her. Not only did they perform the task after promising not to do ANY tests or treatments, they had a student doctor do it. It took seven attempts, each of which was excrutiatingly painful as he kept hitting my daughter's spine! It was two to three months before the pain of that procedure abated and she is now terrified of hospitals.

Anything else?

I hope this comment reaches RPH and the Medical Assessment Unit as they really need to up their act. I said nothing at the time, I just took my daughter and left.