"Staff were courteous and kind"

In February, I attended Nottingham City Hospital due to an adhesion in the bowel. I had very good treatment from consultants, registrars and nursing staff as they kept me informed about my condition and were caring towards me. They were courteous, kind and explained my treatment day by day. The most frightening aspect was having a gastric/nasal tube fitted and I expressed my fears of having this, as I had experienced it twice before in my life. They did their best, but I still hated having it done.

The ward was kept nice and clean and when I noticed stains on my bed curtains, they changed them immediately. I don’t think it is appropriate to have mixed wards, as we have men and women wandering up and down the passageways in various states of undress, but we did have female and male bathrooms which was essential. I noticed there were plenty of alcohol hand wash stations and disposable towels available.

The staff worked extremely hard, particularly the day staff as it was a very busy ward, with operations being done at all hours. Some day staff diligently worked very long hours, which I felt was too much for them. We had one night when we did not see much of the night staff, and we waited a very long time before we could settle down to have our drugs and night time drink. One night, the staff had an emergency at change over time and this is not the night I refer to above.

Having our mobile phones in the ward was a great comfort to us all to be able to keep in contact with out families and generally speaking everyone was considerate with them. Most of my time I was nil by mouth, but when I was allowed to eat and drink the staff were very helpful and the food was very good.

The most difficult situation I had was on admission into Harvey 1. I was feeling very ill and apprehensive and after someone came and took my initial details I was left alone to sit on a chair for hours, until I couldn’t bear it any longer. I saw no one during this time. Eventually I got up and went to find someone to say I had to lie down and please could they find me a bed. In the bay I was in, there were two beds unused, so quite quickly two people came thoroughly cleaned one of them for me and I sank into it when it was ready. Whilst they were doing the bed no one came to tell me it was for me, so I was very agitated wondering what was going on.