"All the staff were great, very friendly."

Dear Januarybc59

My name is Dr Holly and I am a member of the Paediatric team who responds to patient and family feedback.

May I firstly thank you for the time you have given in sharing your experiences about your time with us. The points you have raised are hugely valuable for our learning, guiding what areas we need to improve upon so our care is as best as it can be for our patients, young people and their families.

I am very happy you received such great support from all the staff who looked after you and your daughter, which as a Children’s unit we always aim to provide. I am also pleased your daughter was able to take full advantage of our meal choices - we understand the benefits and importance of good nutrition, so we give careful consideration into the meal choices we provide for our children and young people on our ward. We regularly involve our dietetic colleagues to improve food choices and options for specific dietary requirements.

I am also glad you were able to benefit from our parental sleeping facilities. We provide both parental bedrooms and sleeper chair options for parents to sleep in the cubicles and bays so you are able to be with your children at all times.

We truly appreciate the importance of ensuring families and children are made as comfortable as possible during their hospital stay as it can be a hugely stressful time for you all. Access and knowledge of our facilities and services to support you through this is of upmost importance to us. So, I am saddened you experienced a lack of proactive communication about our dedicated family and children’s spaces during your stay and during your previous admissions and the temperature was unable to be managed optimally for your daughter. On behalf of the Paediatric department I apologise for the difficulties you experienced during your stay with us.

We recognise that as the Children’s unit based within the older buildings of the hospital, we have challenges with regulating the temperatures. In endeavour to solve this problem we have upgraded acorn ward in the past which included reflective roof panels to maintain a cooler temperature. Moving forward, having spoken to my unit Manager we are going to invest in Fans to be available in every cubicle on the ward.

Your feedback has been shared immediately with Dr Gita Modgil (our Associate Medical Director for Paediatrics and CAMHS, Children, Young people and Families Service Group), Caroline Jackson and Stuart Adams (our Managerial team). Together we are exploring ways in which we can improve how we highlight and provide information about our facilities and services we provide our patients and families in a more clear and accessible manner. Suggestions include patient information leaflets to be given to families on their admission to the ward. If you have any other ideas about how we could do this or if you have seen any other areas do this in a more optimal way we would love to hear from you.

Going forward, I will share your feedback with our staff colleagues across the whole of the Children’s unit through direct correspondence, Ward and Departmental meetings. Here we will emphasise the importance for staff to actively provide verbal information about the facilities available when patients and families are admitted to our ward. We will keep you informed of the changes made via Care Opinion.

Importantly, we would very much like to hear from you and we invite you to further discuss your experiences and to explore any other ideas you may have to improve our care. Should you wish to contact us please email our unit Manager Caroline Jackson directly via Caroline.Jackson@SomersetFT.nhs.uk.

We really do appreciate your feedback comments, so again thank for giving your time in sharing your story.

Yours sincerely

Dr Holly Mincher