"I would not recommend this hospital to my worst..."

What I liked

To be totally honest, I liked very little about my time at this hospital.

What could be improved

I took myself into A&E with horrendous pain in my right lower abdomen, as soon as I arrived the first words loudly out of the receptionist's mouth (infront of about 15 people) were 'well you'll need to do a pregnancy test before we do anything else'. After satisfying the nurse and confirming I was not pregnant, I was moved to a side room in A&E - I was left unattended for 100 minutes!I was keeping track of the time with my watch, the pain was getting worse and worse. Eventually a general surgeon came to see me (after 3 hours of waiting), I would like to point out this was a Thursday evening between half 5 - 9pm, not a busy Friday or Saturday night. The surgeon told me the pain wasn't coming from my appendix, but he thought it was my right ovary. He decided that I would be kept in over night and scanned in the morning. That night was the most awful of my life, I was moved to C3 (I think this is the correct ward) and shoved in a side room by a porter. After 1 hour of agony a nurse came to see me because my boyfriend had constantly asked the reception area what was going on. Nobody cared. Nobody took me seriously. Nobody reassured me. After no sleep, a lady barged into my 'private room' which was located next door to the staff room (I could resite all of the nurses weekend activities and summer holiday plans). The lady who arrived told me she was a surgeon, she was rude and arrogant with a terrible bedside manner, it was 6.30am, she wipped the covers off me and pressed hard on my stomach, I was screaming in pain...then the worst part came, she boldy declared there was nothing wrong with me and that I had 'pain of the mind'. I hadn't been able to get out of bed all night, had been given Morphene every hour for 12 hours for pain yet she continued to lecture me on being overly sensitive to pain, I was speechless and crying so she continued on her rant...

Anything else?

When the rude lady left my room i was devastated, she had convinced me that there was nothing wrong with me and that I was 'imagining' this pain. Later that morning I was sent for a scan, which showed an ovarian cyst a little larger than a tennis ball which was strangling my ovary of its blood supply. I was moved to the gyny ward and the cyst was removed (after several op times were given and changed) I was relieved, but also furious - obviously pain that severe was not in my mind but the surgeon had convinced me I was making the pain up. What followed was 5 days in hospital in an understaffed gyny ward, full of patients for everything but gyny problems - such as kidney problems, a broken knee and elderly care. The hospital was not clean and the 4 days spent in the same gyny bed nobody came to mop the floor or clean the ward. I must have met over 15 nurses, there was no continuity of care. The only nice people I met were the gyny surgeons, two lovely women who spoke to me like a human being and did not patronise, but their niceness was overshadowed by the whole negative experience.

I have tried to find a contact name and address to lodge a formal complaint , but unsuprisingly have not been able to.

I am concerned that a hospital with such high 'wow survey' results can fail one patient so badly!!! I was treated appaulingly, not taken seriously until my scan showed there was a large ovarian cyst and even beyond that point spoken to rudely and left for hours on end with no pain relief.

I see that more reputable hospitals reply to these 'negative' reviews on this website, it appears that Basingstoke and Hampshire Hospital do not...however I welcome a response and a justification as to why I was treated so badly by several members of staff....