"Friendliness of staff and reputation ..."

What I liked

Friendliness of staff and reputation of excellence of consultant and surgical team involved in my particular operation. (Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy)

I am very much in convalescence and still under the care of the Freeman so too early to comment on final outcome but positive.

What could be improved

An apparent lack of oordination and communication between post and pre-op departments and nursing individuals which left one wondering where the NHS "Excellent" rating had come from.

I came away somewhat unimpressed and inspecting my wound sites to reassure myself they were where I expected them to be.

Often wrong or no food and wrong instructions to serving staff. Wrong medication on at least one occasion on my ward, (thankfully picked up the patient himself). On another occasion porter staff came to a particular bed in my ward to transport a patient to the operating theatre only to find the bed empty. This prompted one wit to say "Oh just pick anyone, nobody will notice".

Routine procedures often not recorded on patients file so nurses often had to ask "What time did you have" this or that.

Poor consideration for patients, especially at night, with all doors open, lights left on and bed curtains constantly opened and left for patients to rectify. I had to use earplugs and eye covers in order to get any sleep at all most nights.

Anything else?

A few days after my discharge I had to return for stitches and catheter removal. The above were all performed within about 1 hour but had to sit for a further 6 hours with hardly any staff contact, for my prescription to be put together. I was later informed that the first prescription (For a very expensive and street saleable drug) had gone missing, apparently within the dispensary itself. The replacement prescription took all that time to authorise and dispense etc.

I arrived for my appointment at 11am and was allowed to leave at 6pm (1 hour after we were told that the dispensary was due to close).

The conclusion drawn by everyone I spoke to was that obviously "The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing". In my view possibly due to the fact that there are so many trainees doing, largely unsupervised, what are regarded as menial tasks in this teaching hospital.

Maybe these criticisms could apply to the whole NHS though I sincerely hope not and it depresses me to even have to think it.