"Half the staff are wonderful - half..."

What I liked

I stayed for two days on this ward and the nurses I talked to directly were friendly and kind. However, the behaviour of the nursing staff towards each other and some of the patients was shocking and so distressing I couldn't wait to leave.

I know some Nurses talk loudly but this was a level I have never encountered before - Nurses joking and complaining about toothache, horsing around and shouting down to each other across the ward about what they were doing when the shifts ended. One senior nurses even had to tell them 'thats enough now;' and they did quiten down only to start again the next day!

One Sister seems unable to talk with an inside voice - the whole ward was left in no doubt what patients on the end of the phone had wrong with them and this was so distressing listening as you knew if you needed to ring the ward that all your problems/symptoms would be relayed to all the women in bed !

I witnessed and heard a young girl visibly distressed sob and cry for almost an hour because she had endured over 24 hours of pain with just paracetamol begging her mother on the phone to come and take her home. She told a Nurse it was because she felt she was being ignored - and she was right, she was.

Another young girl awoke from her surgery in agony begging for pain relief and the whole ward could hear the tuts of the Nurses who clearly thought she should just get on with it - I decided I would leave asap when I witnessed one Nurse walk away from this young girl and roll her eyes at another nurse as she did!

Nurses were bragging just how long they had worked on the ward but this isn't a good thing as they have turned it into a Sorority - laughing, joking, horsing around and treating patients who arrive as interlopers in their day. Horrid experience.

What could be improved

New staff - or definately new Ward management, bad behaviour seeps from the top and the difference in behaviour when certain senior nurses were not on duty was unbelievable. There are some real kind caring nurses on this ward but they need to get rid of the ones who treat it as a playground.