"I was admitted by ambulence with chest..."

What I liked

I was admitted by ambulence with chest pains on a Saturday morning and was assesed in the A&E unit. Everyone from the paramedics to the nurses treated me with respect and good humour. A Chest Pain nurse was on hand and took an ECG trace of my heart straight up to the team in the Cath Lab where they perform the Angiogram tests, Angioplasty and Stent treatements. The team was able to determine very quickly that I was having a heart attack and I was taken directly to the lab. Once there, they were able to determine the site of the blockage and to repair it with a stent within about 40 minutes.

The rest of my stay in hospital was exemplary, I spent 2-3 nights on the Coronary Care ward before being transfered to another, less acute cardiac ward. During the 5 days I was in Hospital I was continually impressed with the professionalism, good humor and dedication of all the staff - from cleaners to consultants.

Whilst on the Coronary care ward I witnessed staff dealing with very one very difficult and abusive patient who posed a risk to himself as well as others on the ward. They did so with enormous patientience under very trying conditions and I was tremendously impressed with their dedication.

I would also say that I thought the standard of food on offer was really very good, with good portion sizes and tasty options available.

What could be improved

Having a stay in hospital can be boring as anything - it was just my luck to be put into the only bed on the coronary care ward with no TV and then to be transfered to a section of the next ward that again had no TV. However - again the staff came through as after one night I was moved to another bed which did have a personal TV. A very minor gripe indeed!!