"Generally I think the care at ..."

What I liked

Generally I think the care at NUH is very good. Staff are professional and clearly focused on giving the best possible care.

I have been particularly impressed by my recent visits to the Emergency Department, although I do have one suggestion to make. At present a patient comes into ED and is booked in at the reception area. They are then seen by the triage nurse to prioritise how quickly they are seen - I accept that this is a valuable and worthwhile part of the process of dealing with incoming patients. However, would it not make more sense for the triage to be done immediately at the point of the entry to ED by having the triage nurse based at the reception area booking the patients in. The present system requires the patient to answer the same questions on 2 separate occasions to 2 different people - this is totally inefficient and a complete waste of everyones time. Just a thought!

What could be improved

More thought needs to be given by staff and management to the overall patient experience based on an individual patient's needs. For example, I am currently having to make regular visits to the DVT clinic and having to share appointment times with people much older than myself who are retired and could attend hospital at any time during the day. As someone who works surely I should be given priority for appointment times at the start or end of the day when there is likely to be less disruption for me and my working day.

It is also evident that improvements could be made to cross-departmental communication regarding patient care e.g. I have recently been referred to Orthotics by the DVT Clinic and have an appointment later this week at 3:40 p.m. On the same day I have an appointment at 9:00 a.m. in the DVT Clinic. This means I will have to come to hospital for 9:00 in the morning, leave to start my working day late and then finish work early to return to the hospital for my afternoon appointment - this is ridiculous! I have attempted to change my appointment time with Orthotics but this has proved impossible. Why can one appointment time not be arranged to immediately follow the other lessening the amount of time I am required to spend in hospital. An organisation that puts the customer experience at the forefront of its planning would not allow this to happen.

The added implication of these appointment times is the fact that car parking will cost me £5.40 (£2.70 for 2 lots of 2 hours parking) even though I will probably only be at the hospital for a combined total of approximately 2 hours. With regard to parking charges, why is it not possible for there to be a 1 hour parking tariff for the visitor car park? I will have numerous visits in the next few months that will require me to be at the hospital for less than 1 hour but I will still have to pay for 2 hours parking.