"I visited my Mother in this hospital ..."

What I liked

I visited my Mother in this hospital and have many positive comments about it. It's clean, small -so easy to navigate, mostly friendly staff, good choice of food, if a meal was missed someone would bring one at any time, cctv, nurse station accessable and manned, good physio, nice small garden, good general care, prominent hand wash etc but the big issue that lets this hospital down is the frequent failure to answer the buzzers of elderly patients.

What could be improved

I spent about 1 month visiting my Mother and repeatedly I was aware of call buzzers going unanswered for in excess of 25 minutes. There have also been times to numerous to count of buzzers being unanswered for 10 minutes and sometimes they are turned off without being answered. My Mother was unable to walk without assistance in common with most patients in Coverdale ward and although not incontinent in any way she wet the bed twice during her stay as she just couldn't hold on any longer and her buzzer was ignored. A number of patients in the same 4 bed block had the same problem. I went to get a nurse on several occasions for other patients. On one occasion I asked why this was happening and was told they didn't have enough staff on one occasion and on another there was an emergency.Although I accept that there may have been an emergency that I wasn't aware of on this occasion - there were many many times when this happened. I don't believe that this satisfies a tick in the box in inspection reports or with regard to the hospital mission statement with regard to trying to maintain the dignity of patients. Perhaps if staff answered buzzers more quickly they woulldn't have to change so many wet beds.