"A nightmare, shoddy nursing, poor..."

What I liked

Nothing

What could be improved

Doctor / Nurse communications

Nurse response to emergency light / buzzer

Ward Sisters checks on patient identity

Patients access to food

Supply of drugs (The ward ran out of clexane)

Post op checks of patient comfort and suitability of accommodation (eg not left on a trolley in a corridor for 2 hours)

The complaints procedure (it took 18 months to get a very unsatisfactory reply)

Anything else?

I simply cannot believe the poor state of care provided by this hospital during, and following, my admission. Between February 2008 and May 2009 I spent months there with kidney stones, a snapped achilles tendon and pulmonary emboli (caused by the operation on the achilles). During this time I experienced:

Being left on the floor of a ward for an hour after falling out of bed, despite pressing the buzzer - I had to phone my partner who drove from West Sussex and got me back into bed:

Being left without food for 3 days. I was due an operation on day 1 and so was on nil-by-mouth but this was cancelled and rescheduled for the following morning. That morning I was actually wheeled down to the theatre where they 'discovered' I was on Warfarin (they'd been giving it to me) so it was cancelled and then I went back to the ward to have a drip of vitamin K to counteract the effects. Later that afternoon it was back down for the operation - so still no food. After waking up that evening i'd missed dinner so next morning was expecting some breakfast only to be told I couldn't have any. Only later that evening did it transpire that they'd left the nil-by-mouth sign above my bed from the previous patient. I was not happy, as only that same week a patient had actually starved to death at a hospital in wales due to an 'administrative error'.

Getting someone else's medication. Again they moved me and a nurse hooked me up to an IV drip the next day without checking my wrist tags. I got another patients Frusamide (for a heart complaint) when I was in for pulmonary emboli.

A bloodstain that was on the floor of the ward toilet in April was still there the following month.

After my kidney stone operation I woke up in bed in the ward with the surgical table sling still under me and lying on the catheter bag.

Smokers were lighting up outside the ward window and the smoke was blowing in. Having pulmonari emboli is hard enough without nurses saying they can do nothing about it.AdmissionsCancellationsAnticoagulant drugsEmbolismKidney stonesThrombosisFoodPatient careProfessionalismTelephoneWardOut of hoursAdministrationComplaintsDeath and dyingSignsToiletsNursing staffCommunicationEmergencyOpening hoursAccessibilityAccommodationCorridorsTrolleyDoctors