I have know this hospital all my life and seen many changers. Since New Years Eve 2014 I have been admitted 13 times. In this time I have seen many improvements in and around the hospital. This includes from ward organisations through to decorating throughout Wexham Park Hospital. I have experienced a change in staff attitudes and friendliness from all departments. The care from entering the ambulance to discharge on the ward has always been excellent, even if at times the wait to go from A&E to a ward was a long time, There are two or three things I do feel quite strongly about in my experience.
1....Yes the entrance to various places has been updated and looks very nice, personally I would have preferred to have had the money spent on more staff e. g. more nursing staff / Health care assistants on the wards. It should be remembered that some cases e. g. elderly need more time than the younger. The need for staff to help transport the elderly to the toilet or fetch commodes as required. To in some cases help the elderly to eat meals.
2..... The temperature of each area of the hospital. Some illnesses make you feel hot or cold so it is important to have facilities for these variation's. It is nice to keep the wards hot but why can there not be fans for those who are to hot, yes there are a couple here and there but not enough.
3..... The menu for the meals is far better than it use to be, however why is there very little traditional English foods. Also the variety is lovely if you are in for a week but spending as much time as I have a two week rotation of the meals would make it less monotonous.
With regard to the meals I did find that if I placed comments on the menu order sheet where possible the requests were noted and implemented. An example was asking for meat salads, eg ham, beef etc.
4...... The thing that is frustrating to myself and many other patients I have witnessed going home is the problem with the pharmacy. Why could the money spent on updating the entrance have not been used to expand the pharmacy department. I have in every discharge been sat until gone 9pm waiting for my medication to arrive in order to go home. I fully understand the pressure on this department and all the things they need to cover from wards, clinics, patients discharge and A&E.
Which brings me to the discharge lounge............ What is the point of this. It could be used as another ward. As I am a person who suffers from depression etc I need a place to class as mine as a safety net. Being moved from one department / ward to another is hard enough for my stress without being pushed out of a ward where I know the staff and doctors to somewhere just to wait to go home. If Pharmacy was sorted then a discharge lounge would not be needed, beds would not be blocked and everybody would be happier.
I have on one occasion been told I had to go and was reduced to tears, which is not normal for me, as it happened I did not go but only because staff realised how upset and stressed, increasing my blood pressure the effect had on me. I am not the only one who has voiced this, but many people will not say so.
"13 admission in as many months"
About: Wexham Park Hospital Wexham Park Hospital Slough SL2 4HL
Posted by lhb (as ),
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