"Come on Sunderland, go to other hospitals and see how they are getting it right"

Have read some patient stories on this website, regarding Sunderland Royal Hospital. I have to report what happened to us, over many years of using this hospital, when have been forced to. On all occasions, the quality of the clinical care has almost every time been very good. However, this has been let down by poor communications skills by quite a lot of the staff. The general rule must be, don’t ask any questions or query what they are doing, as they don’t like to be questioned critically. Staff talk down to people regularly, and this detracts from the quality of the care provided.

Recently my wife, who is a senior nurse, questioned the position of a Venflon in her arm and was told quite abruptly there’s nothing wrong with it. When it was removed, a day later, the nurse removing it commented "that was not put in very well". Having had these fitted to me personally, on many occasions in the past, anyone with half an eye for observation could clearly see it was not in very well – yet the practitioner who placed it in disagreed strongly. There seems to be an obvious need for observation of the clinical practice, combined with communication skills required to be successful.

Wherever possible now, we use an alternative hospital Durham, as the staff there have it right. Good quality care combined with good communication skills required for the job – end result very happy patients. So come on Sunderland, go to other hospitals and see how they are getting their communication skills right.