"Treatment at QMC Nottingham"

I collapsed on an evening in mid-March and was wonderfully well-treated by East Midlands Ambulance Service staff. However, my hospital experience left a great deal to be desired.

Although I was taken in by ambulance to Casualty at Kings Mill Hospital it took over an hour for a nurse to triage me, during which time the ambulance staff had to stand around waiting - what a waste of their valuable time. I don't remember anyone coming after that, though my husband says I was semi-conscious - enough to co-operate. Apparently I was taken for scans and then taken by blue-lighted ambulance to Queen's Medical Centre at Nottingham. Apparently I had a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage.

The passage below is an extract from the longer piece I wrote on Facebook:

"I came out of theatre something between 7 and 7 and a half hours later and don't really have any memory of coming out of anaesthetic or of knowing I was on Neuro Intensive Care. The next few days have no particular memories other than how unbelievably nasty and uncaring some of the nursing staff were.

A couple of them did seem to care and went out of their way to help, but it was only a couple. What sort of caring nurse, who knows (or ought to know)that their patient has such poor eyesight as to be officially classed as visually impaired when uncorrected (my prescription is -14 in one eye and -10. 25 in the other)and also has congenital spinal deformities tells her patient she's lazy because she can't see to walk safely to the bathroom, then puts her an adult nappy on and forces her to walk despite the back pain which is so intense it makes her pooh her nappy? Even better, the nurse then grumbles at the patient so she has to clean herself up unsupervised in a shower because the staff have other patients who need them...God help us all if this our NHS now.

Sorry if that offends anyone who reads this, but this happened to me. I was in hospital for 11 days, during which time I lost 12 pounds in weight and quite literally couldn't find a position to rest in any degree of comfort. The mattresses were/are memory foam, which is probably great if you've a normal spine but don't give anything like enough support to a deformed spine. They eventually put me on to a totally new regime for pain relief, despite that fact that the routine I follow has worked well for over a decade and which they eventually (6 days down the line)put me back to. "

On discharge I was given papers in which it said I'd be seen in 6 to 8 weeks; my appointment has come through for August - five months on. Apparently they are short of neuro consultants but can't afford to employ any more.

We've already contacted the hospital about all this but not received any useful reply.

Surely things can be done better and more efficiently? Replies to patients' queries would be a good place to start.