"Hospital Stay 1-5 January"

I attended WGH A&E department on January 1 2016 after being advised to go there by Mount Vernon Cancer Centre due to a high temperature whikst taking a chemo drug,

Treatment in A&E was very good and staff on duty were helpful, courteous and interested in what was going on with me.

As I was advised that I would be staying in hospital I was moved to AAU at approximately 4pm.

At 11.15pm I was moved from AAU to the Stroke Unit, my treatment was intravenous antibiotics, I overheard a nurse at the time advising a colleague that the bay on the ward had been opened to free up beds in the AAU, why this move had to take place at such a late hour I really don't know.

I spent five days on the ward whilst being treated and consistency of care was not good.

If I had been like some of the patients on the ward - confused and not always able to make themselves understood - I would have been uncertain as to whether or not I would have received either the correct or any medication.

Handovers between night and day staff were short and sweet. Sometimes staff were not even aware of where patients were when they had been taken for scans or x-rays etc. On my final day on the ward there was a stand up argument between what appeared to be a hospital administrator and a nurse in front of all of the patients.

It certainly did not instill confidence that the staff knew what they were doing and certainly explains why the hospital is under special measures.

Unfortunately I will probably have to go to this hospital again as it is my nearest A&E department but I dread the thought of being admitted again unless the management can get this terrible messy service knocked into some form of recognisable caring state.