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Concerns over disabled parking at new hospital

Posted By kakamac

"Concerns over disabled parking at new hospital"

About: Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow

(as a relative),

Firstly as a disabled driver visiting my mother in the new hospital I am disgusted at the lack of disabled facilities near the entrance to the hospital.

There are no facility to be dropped at the door even you have to be dropped by car way back behind the bus lanes. I know the buses are an important part of the hospital but so is disabled people either going to visit or going for an out patient appointment.

I witnessed people coming out after their stay in hospital being pushed in a wheelchair in the pouring rain to the car park where there is not even a walkway to shield people in our erratic climate. The area around the building is like a wind tunnel regardless of the weather I saw an old aged pensioner nearly blown over only for the kindness of a couple who helped her into the building. I can foresee only accidents waiting to happen when the really cold and ice appears as we have in our winter time.

I'm appalled at the wide open space at the front area to the hospital it could house at least 2 spaces for disabled drivers or more and a drop off and pick up area outside the front door. Someone somewhere has made a terrible judgement with this new state of the art hospital and I can only hope that it is a work in progress because nobody in their right mind should have designed this building and area for sick people.

It is a beautiful building and the inside is magnificent but getting to and from the building is a nightmare and will only get worse if something is not done. I myself am due to have a knee replacement in a few weeks time and already I am dreading how I will get from the front door to the car park when my relatives come to pick me up The ambulance service are also feeling stretched to the limits as they have to wheel patients from the clinics to the ambulance and go back and forth for the rest of them taking them 3 times as long as they used to.

I would love to hear other peoples view and indeed the person that designed this building because I am sure they are able bodied or it would not be done as it has.

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Responses

Response from Lorna Fairlie, Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 8 years ago
Lorna Fairlie
Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager,
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

I work in a small team in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde which seeks to involve patients and carers in the work of the NHS. The biggest part of my role is in managing feedback projects across the Board area, one of which is Patient Opinion. It is my job to give our patients and carers the opportunity to give us feedback, and to make sure that this is passed to the right people to help us improve the services we provide.

Submitted on 26/05/2015 at 14:55
Published on Care Opinion at 20:19

Dear kakamac,

Thank you for posting your experience and views relating to the entrance area of the new hospital.

First may I apologise for any distress that you experienced whilst visiting your mother. You rightly indicate that this is a brand new facility and in fact it only opened its doors to the public a few weeks ago. As such our staff, and the staff of other organisations, are familiarising themselves with the approach road and various drop off areas and taxi ranks. Although we have had thousands of staff inducted onto the site over recent months, this learning curve will continue whilst we continue to move services onto the site and transfer staff across to it.

It will also be a period of time before all of the infrastructure and services supporting inclusive access to the hospital are fully in place. These include shelters, wheelchair stores, further signage and road markings as well as staff and volunteers supporting getting to and from the front entrance and into the hospital to clinic or ward.

As you indicate in your posting, this is a work in progress and most unfortunately, co-incided with a spell of very inclement weather. We understand that this may have caused some difficulties for patients and visitors. However, we hope that the above works will be completed in the next few weeks and we will continue to monitor how effective they are. We wish to see how the entrance area, the hospital and its various access components work when fully operational and will use this to look at what further works or support may be required to underpin inclusive accessibility to the site.

Once again, may I thank you for sharing your views here on Patient Opinion. We welcome all feedback and seek to use it to improve the services we offer. May I also take this opportunity to wish you well with your forthcoming operation.

Best wishes,

Lorna

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