"My father (he is deaf) was transferred ..."

What I liked My father (he is deaf) was transferred from Northwick Park Hospital to Hammersmith's Renal Dept. after suspected heart attack. This was an experience that gave us our faith in the NHS.back. The staff treated patient and his family humanely, with good humour, care, professionalism. All big organisations have breakdowns in communications, but here, staff work as a team, my family all agreed that Hammersmith Hospital, Renal Dept. is exceptional. Having spent many hours at the hospital every day for nearly 2 weeks, I saw other parts of the hospital and the general culture seemed to be very positive. The management seems to cover all aspects of the hospital - I noted general cleanliness/maintenance was very good, the canteen offered good, reasonable, varied food, they have several small snack/coffee outlets around the hospital, the general positive attitude meant that a couple of times when I seemed to be lost, someone came to my rescue unprompted! What could be improved? The porter service was a eratic - one evening my father was kept waiting over 1.5 hours to be returned to the ward after a scan. That for a sick old man at 10.30 at night. He was exhausted and stressed out. Not good. Anything else? LET DOWN BY NURSES ASSISTANTS The one negative was from nurses assistants, one who was particularly unpleasant (took over 1.5 hours to get drinking water for my father - he had not had anything for approx 12-16 hours due to angiogram procedure and was really desperately thirsty on returning to ward. He was also bleeding from operation wound, but because of the uncaring conduct, no-one was made aware of the very real danger he was in until doctor's rounds. The next day, there was more nastiness, this time from 2 nurses assistants. This is a real shame as their poor treatment could so unfairly reflect on the otherwise excellent staff.