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On Ward 4b there was a ward sister ...

Story from nhs.uk

"On Ward 4b there was a ward sister ..."

About: Gloucestershire Royal Hospital

(as the patient),

What I liked

On Ward 4b there was a ward sister who seemed genuially concerned as to how thorough my medical history was looked at and checked through and she was the only one who acted on improving my pain by upping my dose of oral morphine, sadly tho this did not improve but atleast she tried. The younger nurses do try very hard to help patients as best they can but are not helped enough by staff above them to be able to give reasurrance and comfort that is needed to enable a patient to feel safe and cared for. Some of the young nurses are talked down too at times and this makes things harder all round.

Also thankfully one of the nurses on Ward 4b moved me into another bed on another bay unit as the bed I had been put in was broken, totally unacceptable and the environment was so distressing and noisy that it made the whole experience very traumatic.

What could be improved

Bed management team really need to think alot more about feelings of patients who are lying in their beds feeling so ill and disorientated as being pushed around from pillar to post makes a patient feel very very ill indeed. They need to consider more personal medical background history before just pushing a patient into any old place/bed.

Bank nursing staff need checking upon that they know fully what they are doing when taking a patients observation as quite clearly the one banking nurse on late at night for my ward had no clue which puts a patient at great risk.

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Responses

Response from Gloucestershire Royal Hospital 17 years ago
Gloucestershire Royal Hospital

Submitted on 21/02/2008 at 11:09
Published on nhs.uk on 17/07/2008 at 09:30

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust replied:

We are very sorry that this patient’s experience was traumatic and would like to respond to the various points raised as much as possible without having the full details.

The Director of Nursing said: “I would like to reassure this patient that the senior nursing team are listening and taking action on issues raised by patients and their carers. We aim to have a more visible presence in clinical areas of very senior nurses to both support and advise staff. I am sure that this will help to reassure the patients, as you have suggested.”

We were concerned to hear that a patient was nursed in a broken bed. This is not the standard of care we expect to give and we apologise for any inconvenience this caused. We have recently placed an order for 100 electric profiling beds which will be more comfortable for patients and make the easier to manoeuvre patients with mobility problems.

In relation to the comments about patients being moved between wards we would like to say that any judgements made about the best ward for an individual patient are made on the basis of their clinical need.

Our bed management team are all nurses by background, with considerable experience, and they make decisions after discussion with medical staff. They would always try to avoid moving any patients in the night, to limit the disruption to that patient and others being cared for in the same ward. Sometimes it is unavoidable that there will be movement at night, especially when a patient is admitted to hospital at night.

We welcome feedback from patients and their families on our services, it is particularly helpful to speak to people in person and get the full details, so that we can take action where needed.

The independent Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) is available to help. To contact the friendly PALS team Tel: 08454 226831 (daytime); 0800 9531367 (out of hours) or email: pals.gloucestershirehospitals@glos.nhs.uk

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