"Thank You"

I really cannot fault the medical staff at any level. I am no expert but based on my diagnosis and treatment throughout my stay they must be among the best in the world not only the country. There is only one area that needs to be improved and I literally mean AREA. The outside area in some places is disgusting. When looking down from the corridor windows onto say the roof of the kitchen there are pillows, blankets, shoes, all the usual bottles, magazines, books and even a credit card. Get your ass into gear facilities manager or whoever, you are letting the side down and all the junior staff that see the rubbish must report it. As an ex Communications and IT manager the of lack of tried and tested technology in basic admin makes me want to cry in pain and sympathy for the the staff. I was in for eleven days and recounted my full medical history from birth five times. On request not volunteered, I might add. The handovers between shifts would appear very inefficient from the questions asked of the patients at the beginning of each shift. Once the full shift cycle had been completed and familiar faces appeared it was a totally different story. They remembered. The taking of notes is a painfully slow process and very time consuming for the staff when they could be giving care not writing about the past. The solution is to give each patient a personal assistant on admission to hospital. It could be an iPad or similar (Locked to the bed/trolley of course), with connection to the main database. From the very first triage all interviews are videoed, physical symptoms photographed, stats recorded. As the patient passes through the system all additional examinations during doctors rounds, consultations etc are appended. Searching through paper files for a particular result takes so long and the results not always positive. On one occasion it was assumed I was in Endoscopy for one reason only. I prompted the nurse to look again as I was promised both ends. Sure enough tucked away in the file was an appended hand written note. I know this shouldn't happen even on a paper based system but it is so time consuming and difficult to keep writing notes people will take short cuts. Doctors are probably the worst culprits. The system needs to be improved. The time saved spent on patient observation and care. The admin system lets the side down, it needs improving