"I hope I am never so ill as to have to..."

What I liked

The Intensive Care Unit was very good at first. Seemed clean and comfortable. After 3 days things seemed to change so that while my father was waiting for a bed in another ward he got an infection which was left untreated until he moved to ward 7a.

What could be improved

A little more joined-up communication between the nursing staff and doctors/consultants might help in being able to explain to patients and relatives what is going on. It would have been nice to be informed when he was moved from intensive care!

When waiting for a bed in another ward my father got an infection which was left untreated until he moved to ward 7a. He has become increasingly depressed and apart from the occasional visit to his isolation unit, he is left for hours on end with nothing - there isn't even a TV.

Considering Yeovil see themselves as such an up to date, High tech hospital, can they not invest in sufficient staff to be able to offer adequate nursing care and perhaps the odd luxury of a TV for those patients who have neither strength nor energy to do anything else. I feel my father has been left to brood over his illness which is not operable because he is too frail. He has been given no other options and absolutely no reason to want to live.

I live a 2 and a half hour drive away and work full time - I have managed to visit 3 times in the week he has been in hospital and each time I find he is worse. They wont allow me to move him closer because they say it is still early days - my fear is that he will die if he continues to deteriorate as fast as he has done in this first week there.

This has been far from adequate care - until today not one nurse or doctor was available to me to discuss his case - they were always too busy and although I appreciate that they all work very hard the inadequate staffing levels cause real concern.

Anything else?

It was only after insisting on talking to someone that I got any update - that was today - 9 days after he was admitted - very poor communication.