"My experience as a day patient"

I was admitted yesterday as a day patient for an endoscopy under an NHS scheme. The hospital was very clean and my room was very comfortable. I found the staff very polite and helpful. They took me to my room and explained everything very clearly. The doctors and nursed were also very kind and professional.

What did mar my experience was the admin side of things. I was asked to be at the hospital at 2pm (1pm in my letter) but the procedure only started at 6.15pm. I waited over 4 hours in my room. Of course this long wait caused me a lot of anxiety and furthermore I had not eaten all day - which was entirely unnecessary. I could have eaten up to 4 hours before, so I could have had breakfast and lunch. By the time I was able to eat 8pm I was exhausted. - I recently had an endoscopy at the Royal Free Hospital and the wait there was only one and a half hours!

The admin really needs to stagger the patients rather than ask all pm patients to arrive at 1pm! - I read the same complaint by another patient. Shame, as otherwise everything was very good.