"The staff were fantastic, they ..."

What I liked

The staff were fantastic, they kept me calm before op and looked after me very well post op. The ward was very clean and the staff maintained this throughout the day. It was a busy ward but if someone pressed the call button a member of staff arrived very quickly.

What could be improved

The food was quite bad, everything was brown and the food was cold. I relied on visitors bringing food in for me.

Anything else?

I was admitted on a Thursday for a major operation, on the Saturday morning I wasn't feeling great and was still in a lot of pain. I was given the option of staying in longer or going home but was told that if I wanted to stay I would have to be transferred to North Tees in Stockton as the ward closed at 1pm on a Saturday. This seemed like a lot of hard work so I made the decision to go home, which on reflection was probably a mistake. I felt quite let down on this front as even the nurse said that with an extra day or so I would have felt a lot better. I think for people who are having major surgery they should be either admitted at the beginning of the week to allow extra time if needed or the ward should be open 7 days a week. I understand it's probably a cost/staff issue but this was not a good decision to be made to make when in lots of pain and feeling very tired and run down.