"Ward 8 - Fantastic"

On Friday the 22nd March 2019 our Autistic son was seen at Ward 8 for his first ever operation.

He is non-verbal and we have no means to make him understand what is happening or why we are there.

I was very worried about having to wait from 7:30AM for the operation and anyone who has had an operation knows you all turn up in the morning and you can sit there to evening by the time it's your turn in theatre or worse in case of emergencies.

There is no way my son would wait.

We were dreading it.

I called the waiting list department a few days before and explained our sons autism and they were to leave a note on the system for him to go in first if possible.

We arrived on the Friday 7:30AM, explained to the nursing staff our situation and they checked and he had already been written down as going in first as a priority.

The surgeon herself confirmed this later as well.

The anaesthetist was also incredibly accommodating and decided to go for a anaesthetic via mask.

As near as can get to 9AM we went to theatre, we were both allowed to come down, our son was also allowed to bring a toy and even through he acted up a little and bounced a ball around the theatre the staff were nothing but happy, smiling and understanding.

We were allowed to wait near the recovery unit, soon as he woke up we were swooped in and I was allowed to lay on the bed with him to calm him down as he was very scared.

This is where the only hiccup with the experience happened which I personally did not notice as I was focusing on our son but when we were wheeled back up to the ward my partner had to snap at one of the nursing staff whom was talking to our son as if he was being naughty and misbehaving when he was thrashing on the bed.

He was incredibly confused, disorientated and scared, not having any idea what was happening.

Once on the Ward again we were incredibly pleased to know that our case was once more individually treated different and rules bent to accommodate for us.

At the start we were told we would need to stay for 4 hours of observation time at the ward but this was dropped and as soon as our son had a drink and was steady on his feet we were allowed to leave as just being in the ward was at this point causing a lot of distress to our son.

10-15 minutes after arriving back at the ward we had calmed him down enough to have a drink and a bite to eat and we were allowed to leave.

Both myself and my partner are INCREDIBLY impressed by all the staff involved from us arriving to leaving.

We felt very welcome and nothing was a bother for anyone, everything was done to make our sons experience as comfortable and calming as possible.

I have nothing but praise to say about the staff.

A massive thank you to all the staff.

I would recommend everyone to consider Royal Preston Hospital's Children's Ward to everyone, including from outside Preston as we came from Blackpool and the difference is noticeable.