"I have visited three elderly relatives ..."

What I liked

I have visited three elderly relatives in the Friary Hospital at different times on frequent occasions, and have always been impressed with the standard of care they have received.

On the last occasion the lady concerned was suffering from a terminal illness and she received first class treatment during the last 3 weeks of her life. The staff were efficient, attentive and caring and treated her and all visiting relatives with dignity and respect. The personal nursing she received was excellent and did much to ease her suffering. This was a fine example of nursing as it should be.

This local hospital is most convenient for local people, has free parking and is close to public transport. It has a low staff turnover, many of whom are local, and has well established links with the local surgeries. These factors are very important considering that many of the patients are elderly and that their visitors are often equally so.

What could be improved

My concerns are more related to the website rather than the actual hospital. The Quality of Service is graded weak, yet further investigation of the site reveals that this is the overall grading for the Primary Care Trust, not specifically the Friary Hospital. This does the hospital a grave injustice and needs further clarification and/or amplification. I would personally consider the quality of service which I saw delivered was excellent.

I note the comments made by Nigel Hunter nearly a year ago. I feel that he makes a number of valid points, yet nearly a year later nothing much seems to have changed and I cannot detect a response to his criticisms. Not only that, but some of the information is actually incorrect. There is both on site parking and disabled parking not as shown in the table which states there is none.

This website only reflects comments by those with Internet access and a degree of computer literacy. This hospital serves a large rural farming area, with the majority of patients being elderly. Mr. Hunter works in a firm which designs websites, but I would suggest that for every website designer in Richmondshire there are probably 1,000 people who have no internet access or even a computer. I would suggest you investigate some way of integrating feedback form other sources – patient surveys, letters to the hospital, letters in the local press etc, to produce a more balanced view.

Anything else?

This site badly needs updating and overhauling. Why for example are there two separate entries for the Friary Hospital listing it both as the Friary and as Richmond Community Hospital when they are one and the same place? How can one be 0 miles away and the other 0.06 miles away? The entry for one states that Car Parking, Disabled Access and Translation services are available while the next entry states that this Data is not available. These glaring discrepancies give me little confidence in the credibility of other data listed.