"Truly a Centre of Excellence"

I was admitted for a triple CABG having been transferred up from Harlow.

From the minute I arrived in the facility I got a sense of a clean, modern, and very well equipped facility.

The staff are friendly, polite and efficient and VERY busy.

Given that as a cardiac patient I was feeling quite vulnerable, everything that followed just instilled confidence.

I had the op in the afternoon and was admitted to the ICU some 6 or 7 hours later where I woke around 5am the following morning.

I was then quite quickly moved to Chelmer Ward, initially to a mixed sex ward (not an issue for me) and from there to a single sex LDU 'ward' for a couple of nights before being discharged.

I cannot fault the medical care I received throughout my stay.

The Essex Cardiothoracic Centre really does live up to its Centre of Excellence goal and is a shining example of just what the NHS can achieve when it gets its act together.

On the negative side, the food really wasn't very good with the same lunch and dinner menu per day i.e. exactly the same choices within a day.

Vegetables were dry and largely inedible and meat often over cooked to the point of being dry and tough.

I know from comments from fellow patients that this was a widely held view.

I had spent a week in Harlow hospital before arriving in Basildon, and the food there was very much better.

Definitely room for improvement in this area.