"It's a good hospital but you might have trouble..."

What I liked

The medical care provided was good. My 13 year old had broken his collarbone and they diagnosed and treated him appropriatly.

What could be improved

Several things could have been very substantially improved.

All are "customer service" issues. The hospital management may therefore think them secondary points but they make the difference between you leaving happy or unhappy with the hospital. They can also impact peoples stress/anger levels which was very evident in the waiting area.

My issues were:

- the woman behind the bullet proof class on the reception desk was rude, sullen and unhelpful. Her attitude was "here's another one... god help me... why do I have to put up with these people". Not great when you are worried your child my have permanently crippled himself.

- the doctor who saw my son was good but v brief and abrupt. Only the next day when I researched the issue on the internet was I confident that the treatment (a simple sling) was right for a collarbone that had all but been snapped in half. A bit of explanation would have gone a long way.

- the total active care (brief chat with a nurse, x-ray, doctor looking at x-ray and putting child's arm in a sling) took about 20mins. Yet we were in a not very busy hospital for hours.