"Day surgery experience"

I wish to compliment NHS Fife after my recent day surgery experience at The Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline where I underwent keyhole surgery on my knee joint (Cleaning a meniscal tear).

The conditions inside the day surgery unit are vastly better than my expectations of such a unit. I do not think a private hospital could possibly be better. Not only was the accommodation clean and modern but the free use of Wi-Fi while waiting was a great boon in relieving the boredom of the inevitable delay between admission and surgery. Even though I had to wait over 6 hours between admission and surgery I was kept informed on progress and made very comfortable.

The surgical staff were also excellent and were very reassuring as (understandably) I was apprehensive of going under General anesthetic.

I believe the surgery was carried out by Mr Walmsley and his team.

I also would complement the appointment secretary for Mr Walmsley – a Mrs Penman I believe – for being so helpful in rearranging admission dates flexibly due to my previously booked holiday commitments and also being returned home from a previous surgical appointment due to a chest infection.

The only thing that could have improved the whole experience was the very slow process between my initial consultations, Xray, MRI scan to surgical date. In total 8 months to my first offer of surgery as I was in constant pain throughout. Additionally – as I have had pain in my other knee – I thought it would have been more efficient to have both knees scanned by MRI at the same time – thus saving another appointment which would tie up the machine (even though I did not expect surgery on both at the same time). However this suggestion was not taken up by the MRI operator at QM.

However – I appreciated that the scan was done at 9am on a Sunday – surely a great improvement as without weekend use the delay would have been even longer. Well done to NHS Fife for that change also.

A suggestion to NHS Fife

I think it would be helpful if a patient satisfaction response sheet were provided (perhaps at random due to numbers) after treatment. This could be focused on positive feedback – asking for any suggestions that would make the whole process more streamlined and also giving the opportunity for compliments. This could allow also for anyone who feels that the service had fallen short of expectations an avenue to voice such concerns without resorting to bad letters to the press etc. Many hotels routinely do this with the expectation that they will use the feedback to improve. It could be made clear that the patients could be only contacted again if a serious problem is identified. I feel that this could identify some simple, low cost improvements in the service which would improve the patient experience.