"My stepfather admitted to the Royal Berks"

The ambulance crew from Oxford were a great team and delivered my stepfather to the hospital around 5pm. On arrival it seemed to take ages before some-one attend to my stepfather. He was then moved to another cubicle to wait for a chest xray, he was eventually transferred to the SSU ward around 9:30pm. This seems such a long time from delivery to a ward. Since being in hospital he has slowly been recovering which is very good news, he has not eaten very much due to not liking the food served, I am not aware of anyone assisting him to offer other choices of food to assist his recovery and better feeling of health. He has been at the hospital for 7 days so quite a long time not to be eating sufficient food to gain strength for his release. It was advised that from Tuesday he may be discharged, we are now at Friday and nothing concrete about the discharge, this I believe is due to further blood test results not yet confirmed. When people are in hospital it is because they are ill and this is the only place to help a speedy recovery, but when someone it told they may go home and it does not happen this does not make the patient feel good at all.

I would suggest that patients are not told when they are going home until the staff and doctors have all the facts and results to aid the discharge otherwise the patient has an expectation of departure. The patient should only be advised of their discharge at the time when it is actually going to happen, thus preventing any disappointment. In addition to this a family member took time off work to collect our family member, but when the telephone call was made on the day to the ward they were told that the lunchtime discharge would not happen and they hoped for a teatime discharge.

this really is not good enough and wasteful of time to all. I realise that beds are a premium with sick people waiting but this does not excuse wasting time of others when this delay could be prevented with better working ways. I appreciate the hospitals we have but there seems to be a great deal of wasted time between departments to achieve a good result for the patients. Really sorry to complain but a hospital should be working on a regimented schedule with full financial support to get the job done.