"The wonderful care given to my 11yr old son at East Surrey Hospital"

During a consultation at our GP surgery my 11 year old son was referred straight to East Surrey Hospital with suspected appendicitis. We were given a letter to take with us and told the GP would ring the hospital so they would be expecting us.

From the minute we arrived at the A&E Department I was overwhelmed by how professional and caring everyone was: from the receptionist that booked us in, to the nurse who did the initial assessment and the 3 members of the surgical team who each thoroughly examined my son. Everyone was gentle and kind; each introduced themselves clearly by name to both me and my son; they all explained what was happening in terms that we could both understand; they were gentle when taking blood and when he experienced pain in the arm where the catheter was inserted, they took his concerns seriously and did everything they could to ease the pain and keep him calm.

My son was kept in overnight for assessment and to ensure that his appendix would not burst, and if they did, he would obviously be in the right place. The staff on the ward were just as lovely, friendly, helpful and professional as the staff on A&E.

My only "complaint", if you can call it that, was the time it took to discharge us. The nurses seemed to be in the hands of a very slow, drawn out process, waiting for the doctor to finish his rounds and then "do his bit" on the computer. They kept apologising, they looked somewhat embarrassed that it was taking so long. We too were embarrassed, here we were with a child that was well enough to go home and yet still taking up a valuable bed in hospital. It took just over 4 hours to discharge my son from the time the doctor said he could leave to the time we had the paperwork in our hands. We offered to go and sit in the coffee shop in the end so someone who was genuinely ill could use the bed. If anyone on the administrative side reads this, please, please, please, look at this part of the process.