"The staff were really nice and ..."

What I liked

The staff were really nice and friendly to me and my 9 year old son who was admitted for an urgent apendicectomy. I was really pleased to be supplied with a bed so that I could comfortably stay overnight with my son (I'd stayed in a different hospital overnight with him before and had to sleep in the chair or get in with him). My fiance who is not his natural father was allowed to stay with us during the parent only visiting hours and one of the play workers even made me some breakfast one morning which was great as I was still recovering from an operation myself at that time.

What could be improved

my son was asked to go to the playroom the day after his operation to prove he was mobile but when we got there, he felt unable to sit on the floor and there seemed nothing for a 9 year old boy to be doing in there, so we just sat there for a while before going back to his bed.

Although the overnight beds for parents were great as there are 6 bays in the wards once you get 6 parent beds in there too, there is suddenly no room to move (I had to crawl on and off the bed from the bottom which made it very difficult to put the covers etc. on) I don't know if it is normal but looking a the board showing which patient was where it seemed that it would be ok to remove 2 beds from each of the 6 bay wards to accommodate better space for parents and maybe even space for a colouring table or something in the middle of the room as I've seen in other hospital's childrens wards.

Anything else?

I also found it difficult to find a proper meal for myself. The first breakfast & lunchtime I didn't want to leave my son.when I went for an evening meal I discovered the canteen had shut as the times in the booklet in the cabinet were wrong. The following morning the playworker made me breakfast and my son a second breakfast (after I'd left my son alone for the first time to shower while he ate the first breakfast he'd been offered only to return to discover they took it away even though he'd had none of it) and my son was discharged just after lunch (so I got something on the way home) but I would like to suggest that for a small fee that parents could order meals and be served on the ward with their children should they want to.