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Efficiency of being seen, a lot ...

Story from nhs.uk

"Efficiency of being seen, a lot ..."

About: Hertford County Hospital

(as the patient),

What I liked

Efficiency of being seen, a lot less waiting and sometimes stright in. I think because it is not a large NHS Institution there is an obvious sense with staff you meet, that they know each other and can communicate easier with each other without bureaucratic communication methods. The size and design of the building enables this too. Ultimately, the patient reaps benefits of not feeling like a number. More possibilities of feeling "cared for" result, and the sense of individual attention.

What could be improved

The only two things to be improved I would say is for conversations with reception staff could be a bit more quieter, or have a screen attached to reception surface, like in a polling booth. It is not nice for patients to be heard talking about private health matters in earshot of others.The phone system is really bad, if I want to get through to change an appointment I get batted from one ringing phone to another, using the central number for the hospital group doesn't really work.

Anything else?

Love the little cafe on first floor, and lovely clean toilets. Overall good building design.

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Responses

Response from Hertford County Hospital 14 years ago
Hertford County Hospital

Submitted on 07/08/2009 at 13:02
Published on nhs.uk on 15/11/2009 at 20:28

We love Hertford County too. It's a great hospital that has really been taken to heart by the local community in and around Hertford. Perhaps this is not that remarkable when you consider that the old hospital had stood on the site for over 175 years. Nonetheless, we did worry about people's reactions to what is clearly a very different and thoroughly modern building. So many, however, have told us how much they like the new hospital, which is very gratifying for all our staff.

We take the point about the issue of confidentiality in the reception areas and we will alert the team involved in managing the outpatient clinics at Hertford County.

On the appointments system, we are aware that we have problems in terms of providing a better service to those contacting us by phone to change an appointment. This requires a fairly complex solution, however, because we get hundreds of calls every day - and our outpatient team is getting overloaded. So please bear with us as we make these changes, but in the meantime you can always e-mail us on generalenquiries.enh-tr@nhs.net and we will make sure that you get the response you need.

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