"Major surgery at Royal Hallamshire - great care Ward K2"

Recently had major surgery at the Hallamshire - admitted via GP referral to Emergency admissions and then to Ward K2 where I stayed for 10 days. Surgery by Mr Thomas's team.

From admission, through differential diagnosis, to pre-op, post-op and discharge I was extremely impressed with care at the Hallamshire. In particular the nursing and support care was highly impressive. I was awake quite a lot in the night and would very much include the night shifts in this. My praise relates not just to my care but also to the way they attended to patients who presented overt management difficulties in the wards despite short staffing. The only minor glitches for me were because my surgical team were from a different ward and were pretty quickly addressed. And the anaesthetist took the trouble to come and talk to me post op about issues if I needed general anaesthetic in the future.

At all stages I felt that I was given appropriate choices and treated with respect - whether it was about treatment or the menu - where, unlike stories I have heard from elsewhere, the staff did their best to make sure that patients got what they wanted. Most of the food was pretty good too.

Obviously things went reasonably well for me but I also had confidence that if they hadn't, the appropriate care would have been given. I emerged far more impressed with hospital care than before I went in -(though I was glad the shower had just been repaired). The one tip that I would add (from observation of others as well) is that some time would have been saved by ensuring that medical instructions and referrals are clearly understood by ward staff.