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Children's expeience from front door to home

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"Children's expeience from front door to home"

About: Lister Hospital

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My two year old was a gp referral to the A&E department at the lister hospital last week. On arrival the place was heaving, and it took us 5 hours to eventually get to the ward. But despite the wait the staff in the department were fab...from the doctor who was dedicated enough to stay behind his shift (past 12 midnight) and explain the ins and outs of my daughters condition to me to the sister with a bottle of bubbles in her pocket which helped elevate the distress that all our family were experiencing while my daughter was being cannulated. Thankyou everyone in children's A&E as you have a tough time and see everyone and their personalities at their worst and most worried. Bluebell ward lovely welcome at 1.30am and a bed beside my daughter. There were a few things about the children's ward that surprised me. The lack of bed spaces, only 20 beds! No QE2 and Bedford children's wards open. The food.....well I have a sick two year old who is picky as she's is sick. The menu is appalling. No hot food other than jacket potato in the evening and sandwiches, if you have a two year old you would know they would not eat that, The day time menu is not child friendly at all. I ordered jelly and it came with a dessert spoon....for a two year old! Some small cutlery and coloured plastic plates would be fab... Wifi was a great extra for parents using tablets and smart phones to entertain kids, unfortunately the tv's in cubicles didn't work :-( Fabulous play room and nurse play specialists, wouldn't have got the cannula in without you! Good luck with achieving you goal in getting a new play room, but I think the hospital needs to invest in their future and knock the whole building down and start again, increase the amount if beds, all cubicles ( as it's very noisy at night with poorly babies and children) and praise your nurses for the wonderful job they do! Oh yes and the parents area is great, shower, room and kitchen. We then got discharged to ambulatory care which ment we could sleep, eat and drink in our own surroundings and just come in for medication....super! One other negative...why have a massive hospital which is expanding and no canteen/ restaurant facilities in the evening. This is very poor as everyone looses out, except sainsburys!

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Responses

Response from Lister Hospital 10 years ago
Lister Hospital

Submitted on 27/11/2013 at 11:28
Published on nhs.uk on 28/11/2013 at 03:01

Thanks for your feedback, which covered a lot of ground. So if we deal with them in order, this hopefully should be helpful. Children's A&E - you may have noticed that the Lister's emergency department (which includes the children's A&E) is undergoing major expansion and refurbishment. The new children's service will be ready later next year so that our great team will have fantastic new facilities in which to care for children. Children's ward - some refurbishment has happened already (outpatients area) and more is planned, but the sort of major rebuild that we would like to do is dependent on securing the considerable funding that will be required. We're on the case, but this will not happen for a while yet. On a separate note, the QEII's children's ward closed in 2002 and whilst we've seen a small increase in children coming from the Bedford area, this has not been significant. The unit can get busy, but often not all the beds are in use so this is not a concern. Children's food menu - you have a real point here and we'll make sure that your comments are fed back to the team, as will the information about the TVs not working (although they probably know that already) Night-time access to meals - the main restaurant is closed as when it was open, the income received was far outweighed by the cost - this was not sustainable. This is why there is a range of vending machines at various points around the hospital - including in the coffee lounge above the restaurant, which has a microwave so food bought or brought in can be heated up and consumed. We hope that you found this information useful - we certainly value your feedback, which will be shared with the children's team.

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