"8 days in Queens after displaced and fractured..."

I was the victim of a drunk driver who smashed into my car at high speed then ran off leaving me with a shattered knee lying in the road in the face of oncoming traffic. Needless to say I found the whole thing traumatic. The emergency services and A&E at Queens were top class and I was amazed at their skill and care. Then I was on Alpha Ward A for 8 days and things deteriorated. Waited 3 days for the op and another day for the cast meaning my knee swelled badly and caused more pain. Then they just wanted rid of me with minimal physio until I kicked off and involved PALS. There seems to be a real disconnect between departments not brought about by lack of resources but rather a lack of joined up thinking. My family and I have always been staunch advocates of the NHS but my experience was an eye opener - an almost complete shut down over the weekend, disillusioned older staff (one Matron told our shocked ward they were tired, didn't care anymore and couldn't wait to leave 'like everyone else in here'!) and treating patients who had the temerity to ask questions as troublemakers. Too much emphasis on tick boxes, covering themselves from liability and not enough respect I thought. We saw older and foreign patients less able to insist on their rights pretty much ignored. Overall it seems that there are some really good people in the hospital weighed down by the cynicism and siege mentality of others. I am less convinced now that the problems are ones of funding and more from a lack of joined up thinking. Behind their backs nearly all the excellent nurses were critical of the senior doctors for living in a bubble and the consultants act like some gentrified upper class remote from their far lesser paid colleagues - 'it's upstairs and downstairs in here' one brilliant staff nurse told me and that seemed to sum it up,