"My 96 year old father"

After initial assessment and a 13 hour wait in the ED at QMC, my Dad was admitted to the Respiratory Assessment Unit at City Hospital on 28th December suffering from pneumonia, and moved into Southwell Ward a few days later.

Tests then indicated he also had influenza, and he was moved into a side room where he stayed for a couple of weeks while other flu cases and an outbreak of norovirus were also being dealt with on the busy ward.

He was attended by most of the ward staff during his time there, and his condition at one stage deteriorated to the point where I had a phone call from the deputy sister early on a Sunday morning suggesting I should come in as soon as possible as he was very weak and unresponsive. Somehow he managed to improve, and over the next two weeks with the excellent attention from the staff he was able to throw off the infections and begin to strengthen a little, albeit with some ups and downs on a daily basis.

After a month he was deemed well enough to be discharged, and we were able to move him to a care home 150m from Mum & Dad's home, where 2 weeks further on he is still very gradually recuperating.

At all times he was treated with great respect and dignity, staff often saying how lovely he was to talk to. All the staff were fabulous, in fact after visiting every day for a month I felt like I knew all of them, but in particular Deputy Sister, the doctor, HCA, and Physio stood out as going the extra miles.

The only improvement I could suggest related to the apparent lack of co-ordination with the Renal Outpatients Department where my Dad has been a patient for the past year; it seemed that the ward had no record of this and so it took a few days for me to ensure he was receiving the right diet.