"Person with Parkinson's in hospital"

I was in the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital for 4 weeks this summer/autumn and then I transferred to the West Norwich community hospital for 3 weeks. I had a broken leg. I have Parkinson’s Disease and I have been in a community hospital for an extended stay before, and on that occasion I had trouble with getting my Parkinson’s medication on time, and with staff not understanding the needs of people with Parkinson’s. During this stay, however, I received very good care at both hospitals. I got my medication on time most of the time at NNUH; it was sometimes a little late (10 minutes or so; the latest dose was half an hour late, at night). If medication was given late it happened when staff were overstretched, and once when there was an emergency on another ward which is understandable, but it was given late not more than twice a week, which I think is good. The staff used pill timers which seemed to help a lot. At the West Norwich Community Hospital, I never saw pill timers being used but the medication was always given on time there. I talked to one of my contacts at the hospital about the Get It On Time stickers which can be used on the patient records (these are the stickers from Parkinson’s UK’s Get It On Time campaign), and one of the nurses at the hospital who had an interest in Parkinson’s took up this idea and implemented it on the wards. Most of the staff were excellent, they really were. I had one slight problem at the West Norwich hospital with a night-time member of staff but the matron sorted it out in the morning. Another small problem at the NNUH occurred when a nurse thought I was being difficult when I said I couldn’t stand up, but overall the care was very good in both places.