"First stay in a hospital"

Anything else?

I was admitted as an emergency having never been an inpatient before - and ended up staying rather longer than expected so had a good overview of what went on.

The staff (cleaners/HCA's/ward assistants/doctors/nurses) were, with the odd exception, very caring and helpful and any negatives are probably a fault of the system (lack of resources) rather then anything else.

I didn't like the system of having male and female bays next to each other - so the question about same-sex accommodation is a bit disingenuous but I'm guessing that that is down to resources available again (waking up the first morning on the ward to see an old gentleman using the handbasin next to the nurses station as a urinal was disconcerting!). Sleeping at night was difficult and I'd suggest that the CEO and senior doctors have to sleep on a ward at least once a year (seriously!) then maybe something would be done about disruptive patients who stop the whole ward from sleeping and the endless beeps from the technology. Sick people need their sleep.

I was also worried (as were the others in my bay) about the treatment of very elderly patients which was rather hit and miss. Some shifts they had excellent treatment with excellent staff who couldn't do enough and would endlessly clean/wash/change sheets/spend time feeding and others where they were pretty much ignored (even when the rest of us were pressing our buzzers to gain attention for them) or treated unkindly. Some of the HCA's need a rocket under them!

The admin side needs some work too - my drugs chart was lost three weeks in and never reappeared - why isn't that sort of thing computerised so another can simply be printed off?

To summarise, the people were (with the odd exception - mostly HCA's) wonderful - professional, caring, hard-working (the ward assistant was exceptional) and the consultant looking after me was great as were the staff nurses/sisters and thank you to you all.