"This was the second time in just ..."

What I liked

This was the second time in just over six months I had been a patient at the Surgery Centre - the first for knee replacement surgery in May when I was an in-patient and this time for repair of a ruptured hand extensor tendon when I was a day patient. On both occasions the treatment I received was exceptional and the staff were courteous, friendly and efficient. The knee replacement has been very successful and, so far, the tendon repair is healing very well.

On 22 Dec, I arrived at 8.30am, was in theatre at 11am and ready to go home at 1pm. Brilliant! Many thanks to Dr and team.

What could be improved

My only criticism was that I was unable to get a sick note from the hospital on the day of the surgery. I was advised by the discharge nurse that I would have to self-certify for 5 days and then obtain a sick note from my GP. This hadn't been the case when I had the surgery earlier in the year and I raised this with the charge nurse who wouldn't budge and advised me that my GP would give the same information. I then had to visit my GP on my way home (after just having had a general anaesthetic) and wait for a gap between appointments. As I expected, the GP was quite happy to provide a sick note dated the day of the surgery. A training issue, perhaps?

Anything else?

No, despite being annoyed at the time about the sick note issue, my overall experience was very good indeed.