"Most of the Friarage is truly ..."

What I liked

Most of the Friarage is truly five star and that includes the Casualty treatment my old friend recieved when she broke her arm and the treatment my husband recieved as an in patient earlier.

What could be improved

The Rehabilitation Unit, Rutson Ward has fallen below comment so I can only describe the treatment an old very deaf, partially sighted friend has had to bear. She agreed with her own GP to take a Fast Track bed there to go "somewhere she could be looked after and have all her meals provided while her arm was in plaster." It has been a trial for her. She cannot be taken to the toilet 2 hrly "because we don't have enough staff for that". The sign on the toilet door is so high she cannot see it with a bent spine. She is wobbly and tries to get out of the nurses way when they whoosh past her so gave up trying to get to the toilet for fear of falling. She isn't given a bell to ring (nobody seems to have one) She was NOT incontinent at home but now she is. Every time I visit her I have to get her to the toilet and change her myself. It is so terrible for her she has gone into a sort of denial! I asked a nurse if she could have her nails cleaned and cut, "we can't do that" and I was given the ward stationary scissors to do it myself. Apart from being far too big to make the job easy there was faecal matter under her nails so they were fortunate I thought to wash the scissors in alchohol before I returned them to the nurse who put them straight back in the pencil pot on the desk. Her deaf aids are constantly left overnight in the "on" position so she can't hear next time they are put back in and when she takes them out for that reason she is called uncooperative. A nurse came to take her bloodpressure whe I was sitting with her and had obviously forgotten she was deaf as she grabbed an arm before the poor thing knew what was happening and was sticking the temperature recorder in her ear as I said "she doesn't hear well but lip reads", too late the lass put her head down to the now jumpy old lady who turned towards her just as the nurse turned their head to call out the reading to a collegue and smacked my friend full in the face with their long ponytail. no more space.

Anything else?

The Rutson Unit would benefit from more compassionate staff trained to deal with old people. I am not the only one to see this falls short of the NHS Constitution, in my opinion it lets the Friarage down extremely badly.