"I received fantastic care from nursing staff."

What I liked

I was extremely impressed by the calm and professional efficiency of the nursing staff. They dealt with each patient according to their needs and continued to provide the best care possible even under a variety of difficult circumstances including difficult patients and the icy spell causing a period where a lot of time had to be spent admitting and transferring patients on the ward.

The nursing staff were positive and tried, often successfully, to communicate that attitude to patients. I can certainly say it helped me deal with what was a very frustrating time, when I was only just realising my limitations following my accident.

Four of the five consultants I dealt with were very clear about my situation and what needed to be done to ensure that injury healed completely.

The physiotherapists were careful in assessing my abilities before I returned home and gave clear instructions about what I could and should not do in the interests of healing.

What could be improved

Despite the excellent and hard work of the nursing staff, there is nothing they could do about the toilets. The toilet facilities on the ward were substandard for a disabled toilet, which is bad considering every patient is at least temporarily disabled in some way or other. There are no bars on the walls near the toilets to help patients stand, the toilets are far too low and at least one had the button to call a nurse out of reach. It appeared to me that nursing staff had to spend more time than they should ensuring patients use the facilities safely and also cleaning up after because the facilities were not up to scratch..

One of the five consultants I had during my time at the hospital was so aloof that I did not have my situation explained clearly to me when I was first on the ward. When this was commented on I was told that many people do not want to know what their situation is. However I had never said this. In assuming that I wished to remain ignorant, no extra questions were asked to ensure that no problems had arisen and I was unaware what was supposed to be happening and so did not bring anything to the doctor's attention. This led to me being very promptly operated on once I put 2 and 2 together and suggested that the swelling was not going down because my injury kept moving in the cast. The consultant on duty changed shortly after this, so the problem did not endure for the rest of my stay. This particular experience was the only one I consider unacceptable from my time at the hospital..