"A mixture of really good and really bad"

The hospital seems to have a mix of really wonderful staff, along with some who really don't care at all.

Whilst the good staff are in the majority, unfortunately it is the bad ones that as a patient you remember.

For example, on my last day I was made to lie on a rubber mattress and pillow without any sheets/pillow case because in the auxilary's words "there doesn't seem much point in making this bed up does there".

I was too ill from my operation to object and just wanted to sleep.

I was also told off for blocking the auxiliary's sink up with soap (it was the sink in my room but she described it as her own) as my soap kept sliding down into the bowl.

I think that some of the staff may benefit from a reminder that as a patient you feel quite vulnerable in hospital and it can be quite a frightening and lonely experience for some, so to be made to feel so unimportant that you don't deserve a sheet/pillowcase can be fairly upsetting when you're trying to recover.

The patients that scream/shout the loudest and use their buzzers a lot seem to get a lot more respect from nursing staff.

So a message to future patients is if you're fairly quiet and don't like to make a fuss, you may like to consider becoming more outspoken and you might not bear the brunt of nursing staff who have tendencies towards bullying.

Having said that, the majority of the staff tried so hard and were fantastic, and I felt (most of the time) that I was treated with dignity and respect.

Also, I also only got to see my surgeon for 60 seconds after the operation, and I think having had such a large part of my body removed it would have been nice to spend slightly longer, say 5 minutes discussing the implications, as it is thank god for youtube/google!!

Another positive point is that the surgery centre is really nice for a hospital and it is fantastic to have your own room so you don't feel like you're disturbing other patients and you have the privilege of privacy.