"More wrong than right"

As someone who spent their career in the public sector I was loathe to complain but feel I have to share our family experience of this Hospital. My Father arrived here having suffered a stroke while abroad. From the moment he arrived we were repeatedly told he would be transferred to Bishop Auckland for rehab. This took 3 weeks as a consequence of contracting pneumonia and more worryingly CPE. The presence of infection came as no real surprise given that several hand sanitisers were often empty and my visit to the toilets near the main reception were not what I would expect in a hospital, the Gents was out of use and the disable one looked as if it had not been cleaned that day! We visited every day and were able to come in and leave without any form of medical update, unless we went looking for staff. Some staff were helpful whilst some were down right rude. There was always numerous staff around the nurse’s station but nobody ever acknowledged our arrival or departure. At one point I stood waiting to have a conversation, only to listen to 4 young doctors talking about their plans for the weekend! We had minimal contact with Doctors during the 3 weeks. We were given different messages by different people and at times were left confused as to what treatment Dad was getting and what was happening. As a stroke patent rehab is essential but the infections meant that physio took a bit of a back seat. At one point we discovered that the chair he required for physio was not available to him, as out of the 3 in the department, 2 had been condemned and due to the infection he could not have the remaining one. We were encouraged to bring in a TV as he was in a single room, only to discover that the signal through the socket was so poor it would not work. Just fix it please! Eventually I phoned the Complaints department who were sympathetic and said they would look into our concerns. Coincidentally the next day he was eventually transferred to Bishop Auckland and I never received the call back that was promised! Having read other posts on this site and the Hospitals most recent Inspection Report it is clear that somethings have not changed and still need to improve. Hopefully now he will receive the sort of care we would all wish for from our NHS.