"The car park is absolutely awful. I..."

What could be improved

The car park is absolutely awful. I drive past the hospital regularly and see queues of cars waiting to simply park, go in the hospital and leave.

People are not necessarily choosing to go to this hospital, therefore, making the prior experience stressful before even entering the hospital is uncaring to what could be an extremely sensitive and emotional visit. I am not looking forward to where I am going to park and how long I am going to have to wait for. I am a teacher and taking time out of school for this appointment. I will be absolutely mortified if the reason why I may be absent for such a long time is because I couldn't simply park at the hospital I have been sent to.

Anything else?

I am writing to make a complaint about a member of staff at Essex County Hospital, Lexden Road.

I was concerned that I had lost my appointment letter for my appointment tomorrow morning, so I wanted to ring the hospital to see if it was ok that I came without the letter. Regardless of why I was ringing, it shouldn't have mattered as I was simply a patient ringing fora little reassurance. So I rang the hospital at about 6.15pm this evening.

When the lady answered, I said "Hello I have an appointment tomorrow...." and I only got as far as saying that.

The lady interupted snappily "Appointments people aren't here!"

I was so shocked to not even get to the end of my sentence that I lost my train of thought. So I just continued "I have an appointment tomorrow, but I've lost my letter..." Again the lady interrupted and replied rudely "They've gone home!" I was again shocked and said "Oh sorry, have I got the right number?" as she was so rude I couldn't believe that this could be the hospital.

She replied "Yeah but the appointment people have gone home, they are not here!" I had enough and just simply said sorry and hung up. I wasn't aware that they may have gone home but I didn't expect this. I remained calmed throughout the phone call. I am in my thirties and can deal with people like that even though I shouldn't have to, I am writing to complain because it upsets me to know that this phone call could easily have been made by my mother who is a pensioner and to know that there could be such a horrible, rude person shouting back at my mum upsets me a lot. It is not necessary to treat people like that and as a teacher I try so hard to teach children respect, but when you get people like your member of staff, I'm fighting a losing battle.