"Excellent service that defies all that you read..."

I was admitted to A&E at midnight on Sat, 12th Dec 15, via the NHS 911, paramedic and ambulance services, with chest and shoulder pains that turned out to be pneumonia and pleurisy.

I cannot sing the praises enough of all these services, the A&E dept and the 2 wards that I stayed on (A7 & A10) during my 2 day stay.

I make the following comments not only in respect of my own treatment but for that I witnessed to other patients.

I can only use a string of praising words: reassuring, calm, professional, caring, respectful, patience, considerate, efficient, informative, answered questions.

In A&E a string of tests were carried out quickly, all staff were pleasant, no matter what other pressures they may have been under & ticked the boxes in the above paragraph.

I waited at all stages a relatively short time and only an hour for a bed to be found me on a ward, once it had been decided to admit me.

On the 2 wards in question I witnessed nurses patiently and encouraging feeding elderly, very poorly other patients and I overheard some lovely conversations between doctors and their patients and nurses and their patients.

It was quite touching.

Further more I was impressed to find the consultant at my bedside at 9 a.m. on the Sunday morning and later that morning one of the matrons visited A7 for feedback on the service from the patients.

I wished I had been more aware of the names of the various personnel who attended me so that I could personally praise them but I was either feeling too ill to take note at the time or their name badges swung loosely from their waists, rather than being firmly on their chests.

Thank you however to all concerned.

It was a heartening service, given all that you hear in the press.

Mind, I could not say the same about the food.

Really terrible, a lot of it quite inedible, even the toast (white, cold & hard) and when you move wards you miss out on having any choice of food, just what is left. The only thing that was good was the tea & coffee. I also watched carefully the cleaning by various cleaners and it was all cursory.

I am not surprised that germs generally a problem in hospitals.

These 2 services had been sub-contracted to the same company.

I am sure the lack of funding is part of the problem here.

Finally I would comment on how short staffed they were on A10 on the night shift.

It isn't just numbers and indeed severity of the illness of patients but some of the underlying problems that staff had to contend with in respect of dementia etc.