"A visit to Ward 19 out patients Heartlands Hospital"

I had been given an appointment to see a consultant at the above hospital as a follow up to a series of tests.

I was dismayed and very disappointed with the above service provision provided at the Haematology outpatients department on ward 19.

There were far to many people given appointments on that day ( pm ), the ward was very much over crowded, extremely hot and insufficient seating for the number of patients called to the pm. session. there was also a water dispenser that lacked any drinking cups. The waiting times were extremely long and my official scheduled appointment time over run by 1hour and 20 minutes. When finally called to see the consultant one was again confronted with a very poorly ventilated room that to some degree was very stuffy and hot - there were fans around but these were totally inadequate - they just moved the already over heated stale air around the room.

I would like to say that the staff, nursing and the doctors / consultants were all appearing to be doing there best and acting as efficiently as they could under the circumstances - it was the environment that was really at fault ( I thought this was grossly unacceptable - I noticed that some patients looked quite poorly and to have to endure such conditions is totally unacceptable.

It appears that the clinic takes place just of a Wednesday each week, therefore in my opinion staff are having to cram far to many patients into one day - what is required is that the clinic is spread over at least two days which (one) would make the conditions for patients far more acceptable and durable and at the same time ( two ) it would take pressure away from the staff affording them more quality time with their individual patients.