"I liked the outcomes: my cancer ..."

What I liked

I liked the outcomes: my cancer was removed and I have returned to a fairly normal life, including work. So it's hats off to the consultants surgical team. Thanks very much.

I liked the key worker scheme which gave me sympathetic professional support on demand from the moment of diagnosis. My support workers have been brilliant and still see me at regular clinics. There has been no sense of a huge faceless bureaucracy: no mean feat in an organisation as big as the NHS. Thanks

I liked the cheerfulness and willingness of pretty much all the staff I have met in (I think) nine departments, but mainly Ward 5. Special mention needs to made of my recovery nurse, who looked after me for five hours after the big operation, controlling the pain and putting up with my whingeing . . . and then remembered my name when they saw me on the ward a few days later. Thanks

I really liked the Day Surgery Unit, which was bright and welcoming and where the team work was exemplary.

What could be improved

Only cleanliness, really. The ward cleaners were a pretty hapless lot to be honest: they made things wetter but not cleaner. The building was old and tired though (I suspect it's contemporary with the old Gloscat building, which the college abandoned three years ago) and it can't be easy to keep clean. And I don't think any of the guys I was in with caught anything nasty.

Oh, and that sliding toilet door by bay 5b: very heavy for a post-operative codger pushing a drip-stand.

Anything else?

I was in the Winfield twice in 2008 to have my cataracts done. I think the only real difference was better food and a room on your own (the latter a mixed blessing, anyway). So well done and thanks again, NHS!