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Virtual Visiting Service

Posted By aprilzx79

"Virtual Visiting Service"

About: Belfast Health & Social Care Trust / Virtual Visiting Service

(as a service user),

I booked a Virtual Visit this morning with my elderly Mother who is in ward 4B. It was an easy arrangement & an email arrived for me to access the Visit at the allocated time. I had only arrived in the “waiting room” when I was notified by the nurse I had spoken to earlier that the hospital Wi-Fi being used by the ward facilitator was buffering & unable to connect. Over the next 10 minutes the hospital staff made many attempts to get online, speaking to each other on the phone, I was kept up to date but we had to abandon the call with connection impossible. The nurse I spoke to told me that this problem can occur because her colleague uses the hospitals own public Wi-Fi, surely this Trust must have an alternative network that can be used for this important service. I have been booked in again for the weekend.

This is totally unacceptable as this is the only way that my 87 year old Dad can see and speak directly to his wife of 65 years.

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Responses

Response from Máire Alexander, Patient and Client Experience Manager, Patient and Client Experience Team, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust 2 years ago
Máire Alexander
Patient and Client Experience Manager, Patient and Client Experience Team,
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust

Submitted on 21/02/2022 at 15:11
Published on Care Opinion at 15:11

picture of Máire Alexander

Dear Aprilzx79,

My name is Máire and I am the Patient Experience Manager in the Belfast Trust.

I want to acknowledge how frustrating this experience was for you and for your parents, especially when we know how difficult being separated from our loved ones is due to restrictions on visiting in hospitals. I can imagine that was extremely disappointing to have prepared to see your Mother and then have been so let down. I am sure it felt very disappointing for your Dad as well.

I hope that you were able to connect on the follow up appointment you mentioned, which of course doesn't make the original issue any easier to deal with.

One of the issues with having the virtual visits through a secure network is that is could be used to gain access to protected systems, and the preference of the security teams was to utilise the public network to facilitate the visits, however, I will go back and raise this as an issue following your feedback.

I hope you understand and that your Mother is recovering well.

My very best wishes, and sincere apologies,

Máire Alexander

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