"Poor attention in Eye Clinic waiting room"

Attended the Eye Clinic on 4 December 2018 with my elderly husband (85 years old) who has macular degeneration and has to attend regularly for eye injections.

The appointment was for 11.00 and we arrived on time.

The Clinic was not unusually busy, but after waiting for an hour, I decided to go to reception to find out how much longer we would have to wait.

It transpired that my husband's notes had been put on the wrong pile.

On its own, this was no huge problem, but was an irritant and should not have occurred.

My husband finished his treatment at 1.00 pm.

We returned to the blue waiting room - nearly everyone had been seen and the waiting room was all but empty.

However, there was a rather timid and frail elderly lady there who had been sitting by me earlier.

She asked me if she was in the correct waiting room as no-one had yet called her. I asked her what time her appointment was for - it was for 11.00 am.

My concern is that this lady had been waiting for 2 hours - there appeared to be no shortage of staff and yet no-one had approached her to see if she was OK. She had been sitting patiently waiting to be called and it must have seemed to her that she was invisible. I feel that this indicated a huge lack of respect and care for a frail and vulnerable lady waiting on her own with no-one to speak for her.

I ensured that she went to Reception to see when she would be seen.

This clear lack of care does not seem the appropriate reaction of a hospital in special measures presumably anxiously to improve performance.