"great ambulance staff, great labour ward staff,..."

What I liked

we had our baby on the 2nd October at this hospital.

- The labour ward staff were friendly but clearly understaffed for the volume of deliveries they undertake here.

What could be improved

Florence ward was absolutely awful.

- badly maintained rooms, and filthy windows/frames. it doesnt paint a good image of cleanliness when the rooms looks so dated.

- staff practically never visited us to see how we were doing (esp as we are first time parents, this is all daunting when baby cries and we couldn't see why).

- we were supposed to be seen by the paediatrician on the 2nd (we were in Florence ward from 1pm on the 2nd) but that never happened, they only got round to us at 12pm on the 3rd, and at 1pm we were told that we could be discharged. the midwife said she'd come back shortly with the papers to sign and get us out of there. at 8pm we were still waiting for her, and none of the staff could ever locate her. just after 8pm she turned up, and finally someone looked at our yellow notes only to discover that we'd not been given the TB shot despite it being requested. she refused to give it as she didn't want to waste the whole phial just for us, so told us we'd have to either stay another day, or sign a disclaimer saying we were aware of the risks but didn't want it! we were put in a corner, as I knew if we stayed another day,it would drag on possibly to 8pm again or leave without the vaccine. in the end we told them we wanted to go home and signed the waiver.

This was 100% avoidable if someone would have just read the notes at least once during the day. There's just no continuity of care here at all. Being a busy day or not, doesn't justify leaving someone alone in the room for 7 hours only to discover you forgot a simple routine jab and then refuse to give it as you'd have to waste the phial afterwards.

The majority of the staff were fine, but there needs to be serious improvements in patient care

Anything else?

- i'd say if you're stuck coming here, keep pressuring them to look at your notes and give reasons why you cant go home. Keep asking, as many times as possible, what is left to do and what jabs are left, as it just appears to be sloppy management that keeps people going home when they can.

- guidance on the phone is sub par and ended up requiring us to get an emergency ambulance to get there in time to give birth. we only just made it before my wife delivered. why? on the phone they said not to come in until the contractions are 3 minutes apart (yet in ante natal they said to get to the hospital at the latest when you're 5 mins apart). as a result of this by the time my wife was 3 minutes apart, she had uncontrollable urges to push at which time the receptionist told us to call an ambulance quickly. within 10 mins of getting to the hospital we had our baby.