"Excellent treatment"

Dear Shona,

I hope you are continuing to feel comfortable and recover well after your surgery.

Thanks so much for your very kind and thoughtful comments about the care you received on ward one at North Tyneside. I'm delighted that you felt so reassured by the expertise of your surgeon. I imagine this plays such an important part in helping to calm nerves before an operation.

The kindness, compassion and commitment to care that you experienced from all staff you came into contact with is exactly the kind of quality service that we want to provide for all our patients, every day. I will definitely pass on your thanks to the team and I know already just how much they will appreciate this.

Thank you also for raising the proposed service changes for Ward 1 - it gives me the opportunity to explain some of the reasons behind this decision and our hopes for the service moving forward.

We are taking this opportunity to further develop our Gynaecological services to reflect the new ways we deliver our care. Research and changes in practice show that many conditions can be managed by your GP along with enhanced out- patient care pathways. Our plan is to compliment this by increasing our day case surgery to avoid some of our patients having to be admitted for a 3-5 day in patient stay.

We intend to invest in this enhanced outpatient service, whilst at the same time developing a stand-alone termination of pregnancy service to ensure the highest levels of privacy and dignity for users of an extremely emotive service. Our service will continue to be managed by skilled and experienced senior nurses.

In patients will be nursed in our well established surgical wards offering the highest level of care we currently provide. Every year we capture the views of thousands of our patients - we will continue to do this and to monitor the experience of care on all our wards to ensure we provide patients with the care they need in the way that they need it.

I hope some of this information helps but if you would like to know more or talk it through with someone then I know Marion Dickson, Deputy Director of Emergency Surgery and Elective Care, would love to hear from you.

Marion is a nurse by background and will be in the best position to describe what the enhanced service will look like and what the new changes will mean - she can be contacted at marion.dickson@nhct.nhs.uk

With best wishes,

Annie

Annie Laverty - Director of Patient Experience.

Dear Shona, I hope you are continuing to feel comfortable and recover well after your surgery. Thanks so much for your very kind and thoughtful comments about the care you received on ward one at North Tyneside. I'm delighted that you felt so reassured by the expertise of your surgeon. I imagine this plays such an important part in helping to calm nerves before an operation. The kindness, compassion and commitment to care that you experienced from all staff you came into contact with is exactly the kind of quality service that we want to provide for all our patients, every day. I will definitely pass on your thanks to the team and I know already just how much they will appreciate this. Thank you also for raising the proposed service changes for Ward 1 - it gives me the opportunity to explain some of the reasons behind this decision and our hopes for the service moving forward. We are taking this opportunity to further develop our Gynaecological services to reflect the new ways we deliver our care. Research and changes in practice show that many conditions can be managed by your GP along with enhanced out- patient care pathways. Our plan is to compliment this by increasing our day case surgery to avoid some of our patients having to be admitted for a 3-5 day in patient stay. We intend to invest in this enhanced outpatient service, whilst at the same time developing a stand-alone termination of pregnancy service to ensure the highest levels of privacy and dignity for users of an extremely emotive service. Our service will continue to be managed by skilled and experienced senior nurses. In patients will be nursed in our well established surgical wards offering the highest level of care we currently provide. Every year we capture the views of thousands of our patients - we will continue to do this and to monitor the experience of care on all our wards to ensure we provide patients with the care they need in the way that they need it. I hope some of this information helps but if you would like to know more or talk it through with someone then I know Marion Dickson, Deputy Director of Emergency Surgery and Elective Care, would love to hear from you. Marion is a nurse by background and will be in the best position to describe what the enhanced service will look like and what the new changes will mean - she can be contacted at marion.dickson@nhct.nhs.uk With best wishes, Annie Annie Laverty - Director of Patient Experience.