"Good and bad."

My dad was admitted into Basildon in April 2016 after suffering a stroke. Was recently discharged to go to another local hospital which is more suited to his recovery needs.

Dad went to a total of 4 wards whilst in Basildon, Pasteur, Lister, Critical Care and Edith Cavell.

He went in with the stroke but other than that felt alright besides the loss of mobility on his left side, and then 3 days later picked up an infection which led to very serious diarrhoea and fluid loss - this went on for a month before anyone realised he was dehydrated to the point of near kidney failure and death and subsequently rushed to critical care. No one thought to put him into a ward which could accomodate his fluid replenishment needs. When I asked one of the critical care consultants why this was allowed to happen, I got an answer of "Erm it's difficult to keep up with things like that on the wards." Not really good enough is it really considering my dad nearly died. Every single doctor and consultant we asked about what was going on with my dad, we got fobbed off with indecisive answers and came away with no information as to what was going on and what caused the infection/diarrhoea. It wasn't until he was discharged that we found out he had sepsis and C DIFF - so why wasn't this information relayed to us? The fact my dad nearly died due to a hospital infection wasn't important enough to tell his own family? I will be putting in an official complaint due to this lack of communication and I know why we were not told, it's obvious why considering C.Diff is a very serious infection to pick up when infection control is supposed to be religiously practised in hospitals. Clearly not in my dad's case. Also will not be accepting the answer of "You must have had it from home and the stroke made it worse." as my dad has been since told at his new hospital - strokes don't cause pathogen based infections, nor do you pick c.diff up at home, thank you very much.

Agency nurses were shocking, mainly on nights. One on Pasteur found it acceptable to ignore my dads calls and leave him sitting in his own mess for 13 hours one night until he was found in the morning crying and covered in sores.

However. All of the main staff in the wards were absolutely brilliant, considering the pressure they are under. The staff in critical care and Edith Cavell got my dad back to health in no time after the horrible infection. The staff in Pasteur/Lister helped him get on his way with physio and he should make a full recovery. 99% are worth their weight in gold and I don't want my review to just be doom and gloom, but my negative points are serious and have to be said.

My dad's experiences at Basildon have made me weary but they are not all bad. My dad is still here today and that is down to the hard work of the staff, just a shame he got infected in the first place.