"I would be hard pressed to find ..."

What I liked

I would be hard pressed to find a single positive thing to say about this hospital except that it used to be a little less worthless 25 years ago.

What could be improved

The Phlebotomy staff (this time out) could do with some basic training, and more importantly the receptionists could do with a crash course in public relations. At the very least it would be sensible if the people working at a hospital shared at least the same level of understanding about diabetes as a general member of the public because it impacts directly on their responsibilities towards patient care (and not having diabetics failing over ten a penny in the waiting room).

The most basic improvement would be to catch up with the rest of the western world and understand how to manage treatment of diabetics. They seem able to rush children ahead of the queue (good for them) but haven't yet cottoned onto the fact that people who might pass our or become ill should also benefit from that ability.

Anything else?

I had to have a fasting blood test for Kidney function. The fasting part is essential (I know, my wife is a haematologist). I am also diabetic. thus the entire process of not eating and not doing an injection until after the blood is taken is quite tricky and requires careful management.

Upon arrival i realised that they were rather busy and slow moving and so took a number, which told me there were 36 people ahead of me. I took a seat patiently, but after 45 minutes they had seen 6 people and two children and had now slowed to one blood test every 20 minutes. There were still 30 people ahead of me.

I don't like to push in, but I am also adverse to having a hypo and falling flat on my face (especially in a hospital because they tend to panic and admit you if you do that). So i had a quite word with the receptionist to make her aware of my condition and the approaching dilemma.

Her response was off handed and condescending, unmoved by my situation or her responsibility to the health and safety of people in the department. her advise was to either eat (thus making the blood test and my reason for being there worthless) or sit and wait (thus facing the previous 'face on floor' scenario).

Any other hospital (hell, any other organisation on the planet) would have made provisions so as to not to have a Diabetic doing the aforementioned face on floor thing, if for no other reason than to make their own lives easier. In truth every other trip to a medical facuility has resulted in me having to calm the staff down with their bending over backwards to deal with the problems of a diabetic not eating or injecting, so this trust doing the exact opposite was quite a shock. Basildon Hospital has always been renown as the worst facility in Essex but this is a new low even for them.