"My Son was admited through A&E ..."

What I liked

My Son was admited through A&E onto ward 41 (children's ward in Brotherton Wing, soon to be moved into the Jubilee Wing) after 2 previous visits to St James where they could not find the problem so we decided to go to LGI instead. Thank goodness we did! Rather than being fobbed off the staff took my concerns seriously and it turned out he had pneumonia which if left could have got considerably worse. They explained exactly what was happening all the time and gave excellent emotional support as well as being kind to my son who quite distressed at times. The ward was very clean with people even coming into our room to check it had been cleaned thoroughly! The staff on the ward were incredible, you could tell they were really passionate about treating children and they helped put my mind at rest. Even though there were children on there who were much poorlier than my son they still took the time to answer all my questions no matter how trivial and my son was checked every 2 hours both day & night. We have been very happy with the care we received and would highly recommend it.

What could be improved

As we went in on a Saturday quite a few of the tests had to wait until monday which resulted in the diagnosis being delayed until then - if these tests had been done earlier he could have had treatment 2 days earlier & got better quicker. We were in for 5 days in total and some of the blood tests which were taken on our first day still hadn't come back when we left. Even though the doctors kept us informed they did tend to 'gloss' over things a bit, especially about complications that could arise. Some people want things flowering up, but I prefer to have full information so I did have to ask questions to get certain information, it wasn't volunteered. For example they told us it was a chest infection at first, but only mentioned pneumonia when asked if it had a name so we were given the initial impression that it was less serious than it was. Only other tiny thing was the doctors brought medical students in with them but we weren't asked if this was ok, I didn't mind at all, but it still would have been nice to have been asked.

Anything else?

I really couldn't fault the care we recived overall. The nursing staff were amazing both on A&E and on the ward. They work so hard and are a real credit to the NHS. The food was good too (much nicer than it used to be) and they even fed us parents if there was food left over after the children had eaten! The ward also had a parents kitchen which was really handy for drinks and they had a fridge & a microwave so you could make yourself some tea! I stayed with my son the whole time, but there were children who's parents weren't there all the time and the staff kept a really close eye on them. I would have felt comfortable leaving my son if I'd needed to in the knowledge he would have been properly looked after in my absence. If either of my children need hospital care in the future I would definately take them back there. Well done ward 41, I was really impressed. Keep up the good work! x x x