"Recent stay for hip replacement over 4 days"

The pre-op care I cannot fault (apart from way too much completion of paper work ). Each staff member I met was friendly, caring only wanting to put me at my ease.

I had been in Ward 7 in Jan 2009 for my first hip replacement and the care was superb........all aspects. The nursing care was of the highest standard .

This time I was on the back ward (Ward 1) and the nursing care left a lot to be desired and I was very disappointed with all sorts of small incidents that happened daily.

Examples: no-one introduced themselves to the patients, there was no "named nurse" so communications were difficult with different nurses/physios telling you different things.

The first morning post op with 2 drips in right hand and in a lot of pain, I was given a bowl of water for a wash with no help offered. When the drugs came round, generally you weren't advised how often to take them ( very important for first 2 days post op to be on top of pain) you were just given them.

The night staff seemed very off hand and if a buzzer went they would say "yes what do you want?" and no obvious caring.

There was an old lady in my 4 bedded ward who came back from Intensive care on Friday morning, her drip was removed immediately. By the end of the same evening, after she had said on numerous occasions that she couldn't swallow, there were 3 plastic spouted beakers on her bed table all full of different liquids. That night she was very disturbed and in the morning her drip was resumed.

I had to have an emergency catheter inserted immediately post op and the consultant advised this taken out the next morning. The nurse decided it should be left in when the time came.There are other issues which I have forwarded to PALS.

However the complaint that is very relevant (also from 2009) is about the food. Generally it was heavy and unexciting. Example: baked potato with lasagne and peas which were hard, dry and a grey colour. To follow we were offered a chocolate doughnut. On 2 occasions there was only one pot of fruit/ yoghurt offered to the 4 of us as they had " run out".