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Written by a patient
16th January 2018


The best staff on Ward 34 work hard and efficiently and are a credit to the NHS. Regretfully I also witnessed some rather sloppy practice. 1. I was not always given intravenous antibiotics on time. On one evening my antibiotics were several hours late and another morning, the nurse went off duty before administering the final set of three. I had to chase a different nurse up to administer the final drug. 2. Record keeping about when I was given pain killers was inaccurate at least once. I remember one nurse telling me this was the case! I decided to start keeping my own records about when treatments were administered because some staff seemed confused by my paperwork and quite often asked me when I'd last had a particular pain killer. I did not expect to have to be so proactive in my own treatment; one hands oneself over to the hospital and trusts staff to administer drugs efficiently. As time went on, I saw that I was going to have to be more aware of what I should be having and when. 3. One member of staff took four attempts to get blood from me. I appreciate this can be difficult, but another blood nurse said I had 'good veins' and no-one else took more than a single go. 4. Cleaning is obviously something that the RLI take seriously and it was good to see cleaning being done thoroughly on a daily basis. The only reason I have not given five stars above is that the toilets and showers were not always cleaned as scrupulously as they might have been. 5. Most of the patients in Ward 34 at the time required urine bottles to relive themselves. These were not always taken away terribly quickly. I found it very difficult to eat my breakfast one morning because I found the smell of urine from a neighbouring patient's bottle pretty overpowering. The tea lady openly commented to a member of staff that other staff had not got the patients ready for breakfast i.e. sat up. I was surprised to see some (junior) hospital staff seemingly unaware of things that needed to be done. It seems awful to make such disparaging comments about an organisation that has just saved your life. I am extremely grateful for what ALL the staff on Ward 34 did for me and my average star rating to the questions above clearly indicates a level of satisfaction. Nevertheless, it wasn't perfect.I do not wish to complain for the sake of doing so; I simply hope my observations will help to improve things for patents in future. I do not wish to complain for the sake of doing so; I simply hope my observations will help to improve things for patents in future.

Recommend
Respect
Involved
Information
Cleanliness
Staff