"Absolutely brilliant, inspirational people..."

What I liked

Due to breathing issues I've had to use A&E Chorley approx 5 times over the last seven months, on the last occasion having to call an Emergency Paramedic and Paramedic Ambulance. I can't rate the service of all staff at Chorley and also in the Paramedic service highly enough, and service has been consistently good across every single visit.

I'm sure you can imagine the distress of almost suffocating; when you arrive at A&E service has to be spot on to avoid further distress and on every occasion it has been. When I was driven to hospital, Reception staff immediately recognised the severity of the situation without me even having to speak and deployed service accordingly - something tremendously important when on the first occurrence I had no idea what was happening so couldn't explain what was wrong. All A&E staff performed swiftly and professionally enabling me to stay calm during very frightening experiences. The difficulty in diagnosing the cause of the problem resulted in repeat visits but each time staff remembered me even though visits were weeks/months apart (and it wasn't just through computer records!). They also owned my issues as a cumulative problem, they weren't happy just to put me back together to wait for the next episode - although they weren't empowered to directly escalate my situation to a specialist they were frustrated and passionate about making that happen, wanting to get to the bottom of what was wrong.

When I was at the lowest/most frightening point and Paramedics had to be called, the teams were second to none both in their treatment and also their relationship with me, enabling me to remain calm in the most difficult circumstances. I cannot speak highly enough of the individuals and the service I've received at Chorley A&E and from the Paramedics.

What could be improved

At Chorley, I'd say not a lot at the coal-face. But I'd love the general NHS to create a management culture where they're proud of their staff and encourage staff to be exceptionally proud of their jobs, instead of dropping into the current fashion of a dictatorial management culture.

Making people proud of the organisation and of doing a good job costs nothing yet would solve the general performance issues frequently publicised in the Press. Like running an elite football team, you can't 'dictate/tell' people to be high performers - you need a framework they respect that inspires them to those levels. You don't do that through a dictatorial culture.