"Excellent clinical care but oh! that waiting!"

My procedure involved a general anesthetic and so I had to have a minder to take me home afterwards. We were parted shortly after noon when I was taken off for the paperwork, after which I was told to sit down and then I waited and waited until after four o'clock.

The clinical care was excellent and the the staff were kind, courteous and caring. I have nothing but praise for them. But the waiting experience was unnecessarily stressing for both of us. You wait and you wait and you wait, in limbo, and no-one tells you anything. Just to be told that you were now going to be waiting for one hour, two hours or four hours would be immensely helpful, both to the patient and the carer, but that little bit of vital help is, sadly, not forthcoming. I know that staff are busy, but it would take no more than two minutes to give the patient the reassurance that would avoid their experience being miserably stressful - I would say the gain in morale would be well worth the cost in time.

I also cannot understand how the forced separation of patient and carer for over four hours assists in the smooth running of the hospital. But I would forgive even that if only there were communication. I'm not really looking forward to my next visit, But I shall be a deal more assertive next time!