"The atmosphere and level of care was superb."

What I liked

I would like to say a big thank you to all the staff who cared for me, my husband and our 6 week early baby daughter, born on 29th August. We weren't expecting to be treated at Taunton as we are Exeter based but Exeter was full and so we were transferred to Taunton for the birth. Despite Taunton having much older facilities than Exeter we found the atmosphere and care was superb, in particular the 10 days we spent in Neonatal. We found the little library containing relevant books and leaflets on premature babies, very useful and the coffee morning organised by BLISS was also really helpful. Despite the sometimes cramped neonatal rooms, we appreciated the close proximity of the nurses and felt very safe leaving Amber there, we missed this when we were transferred back to Exeter and Amber had a private room. I would also like to thank all the nurses who helped and encouraged me with breast feeding. The special program for premature babies on the medly breast pumps was really good and I ended up hiring the same pump once I transferred back to Exeter as I found it far superior to the pumps they were using. Thanks to this and everyone's encouragement I have managed to feed Amber solely on breast milk :o)

All in all we had a very positive experience at Taunton at a very difficult time. Thank you!

What could be improved

The parent bed rooms have huge uninsulated heating pipes running through them which have hot water running through them continuously even when the radiators are switched off. This results in the rooms being like saunas (especially as it was August when we were there). not only is this a horrible water of energy and money for the hospital , it resulted in us having to open the windows which unfortunately opened directly onto the labour ward... so we had the option of not sleeping due to heat or not sleeping due to people screaming. Ear plugs got me through but a bit of lagging on the pipes would make a world of difference.