"Very Pleased and pleasantly surprised!"

I write today to advise of how I feel about the general services provided by the staff when I came in yesterday for my ‘routine’ operation. I was first greeted in the ground floor lobby by a receptionist who kindly showed me up to the first floor where I was checked in promptly and waited to be called.

When I came through to the day surgery area I was shown my curtained off area and my gown etc, by a lovely nurse, whilst dealing with me also helping others with a smile and being very efficient. In the meantime the brilliant surgeon came in and introduced them-self to me to then explain what an inguinal hernia is and about ’key hole surgery’ generally and discussed any previous surgery etc, to which I told them I had some 15 or so years ago, my right side done by a Commander over at Hasler Hospital (incidentally, at that time I was surprised by the tentative nature that the naval hospital gave, checking, and checking again on me and my charts/bloods etc) Until now that is…

I can’t think of a better place of health service welfare and the care provided is unparalleled, I almost thought I’d gone to Spire, and had it done privately!

After the consultant left along came Anaesthetist, to advise me of their procedure and explain all that was to be expected, all the while at least two other faces had appeared to ensure everything was ok with me and that i’d filled all the necessary consents in, and again check who I was and where I lived etc!

When the time came to go down I was greeted by the consultant's team in the operating room, smiling and welcoming, which was reassuring to me and by the time they had (checked again, who I was, and dob) put me on the table, talked a little about the Olympics , I had a cannula in and went off like a switch!

After this I remember coming around to be greeted by the nurse again, and they offered me tea/coffee/water and some biscuits to slowly bring me back to the land of the living.

I do not apologise to go into such detail here, but I am very proud of the NHS system today, it is better than it used to be, for example QA (only just before the total refit to super hospital) was not a great place to spend time with any measure of confidence or pleasure to be honest. My mother was there with cancer and some 10 years ago, I remember just wanting to get her home, for fear of MRSA and the like; at that time of course!

I imagine you have many complainers in your industry, with all the form filling, litigation, blame culture, in modern society, having then to make all the staff compliant to needs and beliefs of all the races/colours and creeds, that come through the door in this very multicultural society we live in today, makes the job that much harder and I am amazed by the way each member of your team not only do it…They do it because they want to and they do actually care!

I am very proud to be British and very Proud to have the National Health Service behind me when I need it.