"My treatment was good but what I witnessed...."

I have been very happy with my own treatment on the two occasions I have visited Charing Cross Hospital for MRI and neurosurgery, and I feel it's important to say that before I go on.

My complaint is about the treatment of other patients (elderly and maybe vulnerable people) I have witnessed.

On the first occasion, an elderly lady was left in a bed in extreme pain due, apparently, to a catheter problem. While she was left crying in pain alone (my wife went to try and find someone to see to her) two members of staff were engaged in a public and quite heated argument about who was going to have to do a questionnaire with her prior to her MRI, with neither seeming too keen.

On my second visit I was sitting in C corridor of outpatients and I saw an elderly gent very rudely told to 'take a ticket and just sit there' three times with increasing sharpness when the chap clearly didn't understand. Eventually an office door was simply shut in his face! After a few minutes the member of staff came out again and took the time to speak to the gent, look at his letter and realised he was in the wrong place and he was then given the correct advice.

A little while later, another elderly gent was very rudely spoken to by a member of staff who was seemingly too busy shouting out names of missing patients to help him. They rolled their eyes and turned away from him without helping him, and they also told him 'take a number and sit there' despite his insistence that he had been told he should not take a number by reception staff.

All in all, I was not impressed at what I saw being meted out to elderly patients, even though my own treatment was exemplary and I highly rate the organisation and use of IT to smooth booking in etc.

One very nice touch was an old gent playing the piano quite beautifully by the cafe. You can't beat a bit of La Vie En Rose while you're queuing.