"daycase surgery"

my husband attended maidstone yesterday for a repair of an incisional hernia, he sustained this following a very traumatic operation the previous year, his appt letter stated to arrive at the admissions lounge for 08.00 and to be nil by mouth from 03.30 as he was on the morning list , but we had to call at 07.00 to confirm, he dutifully called at 07.00 and was told that he was on the list but they were not sure what time he would be going down so he could drink until 09.00 and wait at home and they would call, he received a call at 10.00 and asked to make his way in, we arrived at 10.30, he was checked in by a nurse and told to wait in a very unwelcoming admissions lounge, no indication was given of operation time, after waiting for 3 hours (there were others that had been waiting considerably longer ) a senior nurse came in to the room and asked if everybody was ok, my husband said a bit more information would be helpful, to which she replied what do you mean, he replied by saying that he had not been given any idea of what time he was going to theatre but had been led to believe by the letter received that he was on a morning list which is why he had been nil by mouth from 03.30, (with the exception of water )she said she would try to find out , but that they didn`t receive info about patients operation times ,(not really sure how you can run an efficient service without this critical information ) after about 30 mins she came and told him he would be going down in 10 mins, he then went to the theatre and i accompanied him, i asked what would now be happening and was told he would be in theatre for approx 1 hour and in recovery for about 2 hours, i asked where he would be going after that, i was told we dont know, but if i returned with the nurse to the admissions lounge she would try to find out, but its not unusual for a bed not to have been allocated, i was very concerned about this as my husband had a vey bad experience following his previous surgery and we wanted to ensure that everything went smoothly this time, i did return to the admissins lounge and was told that my husband would be going to the short stay surgical ward post op, i was then able to leave the hospital knowing where to return to later, my anxiety could have been avoided if more information was given to patients and thier relatives upfront , this is not a complaint but feedback about how you can improve your sevices. our key messages are better communication about what is happening, where patients will be returning to post operatively and something needs to be done to the admissions lounge to make it more comfortable , sitting in those chairs for in excess of 3 hours is not comfortable. in addition to this please be aware that the sandwiches provided to patients postoperatively are in edible, you must be wasting considerable amounts of money as these are going straight in the bin.