"I was transferred to St.Marks ..."

What I liked

I was transferred to St.Marks from another hospital who could do nothing more for me. The team saved my life. Thankyou.

The care teams helped and advised me with many things.Especially with advice on claiming benefits as I was too unwell to do it myself. Thankyou.

The person who came and did massages.

What could be improved

The catering has got steadily worse over the years.There is a good choice but very cheap ingrediants are used and fish is always overcooked.

As a lot of patients use takeaway services why dont you do it in the hospital ?People would pay for good tasty food.

Why no toast in the mornings?

Patients should have access to be able to make their own hot drinks and get iced water.

A washer/dryer for long stay patients. I often had to dry laundry on my bed and send visitors home with very smelly dirty laundry.Especially in the Lister unit because of the patients special needs.

Limit the number of visitors to a bed I often saw up to 10 visitors around a bed.

The hospital trolley never came to the Lister unit so patients had to leave the building to get a newspaper etc.

Noise at night from the staff and then

6am observations ,waking patients up to do blood pressure. It is far too early .

More activities for patients ..arts and crafts classes etc.which boost morale and relieve boredom for longstay patients.

A visiting hairdresser as I often went for weeks without a hairwash when I was bedbound,and the mess my hair was in depressed me.

A special bin and bags in each room for the disposle of incontinence pads, so the general bin is not used.

When using a commode being offered toilet paper. Never once was I offered it or a wet wipe for my hands in St.Marks.

When bedbound I often had to use the wash bowl to rinse my toothbrush.as no fresh water in the jugs and the "water person"hadnt started.

Visitors not using patient toilets.

Not leaving bowls of "output" in the toilets and bathrooms which need to be measured.Should be removed immediately I have seen up to 8 bowls in a toilet and nurses said they were too busy to deal with.

Parking charges for the visitors to long stay patients.

Acess to the gardens would be nice.

Advise patients to bring in coathangers as none are ever available.

Staffing levels at night are often very tight.

Anything else?

A big donation box at every reception area for St.Marks.