"Monitoring in Acute Medical Ward"

Anything else?

My husband was admitted to the acute medical ward, from A&E, on 18th March, late in the evening. He was made comfortable and the nurse in charge of him introduced herself to me. When he was asleep, we left.

I telephoned the following morning and was given an update on his condition that I was happy with. When I visited that afternoon, my husband was clean and comfortable and I was able to see the details of the neurological observations that had been done since the night before. The nurse reassured me that those observations showed an improvement in his condition. Because of his medical condition, my husband has been in hospital more often than most people, and such honest and open information from a medical professional was refreshing and showed much appeciated respect.

On the second morning, I was telephoned to say the my husband could go home. I was very relieved and arrived with help to take him home. We expected the usual 1/2 day delay that goes with discharge of a patient. Someone has sorted out the system!! Partly because I had reassured the nurse on the phone that we did not need a new prescription, we were able to leave the ward without any delay. Many thanks to all concerned.

I recognize that you may be disappointed that the primary indicator (recommended to friends and family) is not 5 star. The reason is that we went home without any written details of what was wrong with my husband, any problems we should look for, or any follow up that may be necessary. The last thing that I would want to do is to cause more paperwork for healthcare professionals, but, with a little more information, repeat visits to A&E could possibly be avoided. For example, I am not familiar with steristrips to close a wound. Do you take them off after a fixed time or wait until they fall off? This may seem trivial but advice on this would avoid troubling the GP and cause less worry to the patient.

However, overall, we are very happy with our experience of the RLI and thank everyone involved.