"very dissapointed"

We were shocked and very disappointed to read your posting on NHS Choices and would like to apologise for the bad experience you and your daughter have had. We are sorry that you considered the unit to be ‘old and tired’. The unit is located in one of the slightly older sections of the hospital but is due to be refurbished very soon. We anticipate that this will greatly improve the overall environment for women and their families. As you will appreciate childbirth is a very unpredictable time for women and as a result we can experience unplanned busy periods. Staff are trained to respond to such situations but this can result in women waiting longer than usual to be seen. If the reasons for your delay were not effectively communicated to you to help you understand we wish to apologise for this. We continually meet the high levels of the Trust’s regulatory cleaning standards within our maternity department. In the event you perceived a clinical area to be dirty, had this been alerted a member of staff to this we would have been happy to ensure this was immediately addressed. The care you described is not the high standards of women-focused care we would expect to provide. All staff endeavour to treat women and their families individually, with dignity and respect. We wish to apologise if the care you received was not of the usual high standards and you experienced long waits. As we do not know your specific details at this time we are unable to comment further in relation to the reasons for this. To help us understand your concerns so we can act on them, we would be really grateful if you would be willing to share more details with us. You can contact Claire Pinder (Acting Directorate manager 2825669) or Elaine Blair, (Head of Midwifery 2829030) or the PALs service (0800 032 02 02). We take any negative comments very seriously and would value the opportunity to respond to yours fully.