Share review of The Royal London Hospital

The Royal London Hospital 2013-07-30 Person 4 5 0

I have spent 23 weeks in the last 18 months in the Royal London. I must stress that my ratings apply to the time I spent on Ward 13D (20 weeks). During my time on this ward I received the most amazing care by the nurses and my whole surgical team. They could not do enough for me and there knowledge and understanding of my condition were second to none. I felt completely safe during my numerous admissions and each time I returned it was like going home to old friends. I really cannot rate this ward highly enough and would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending anyone to this ward and my amazing team. If I ever have the misfortune to have to return to hospital I will fight tooth and nail to be readmitted to this ward like I had to when I was put on Ward 3D (see below). I was also admitted to A&E twice and I cannot fault my care there either. I cannot rate my doctors and consultant highly enough. My consultant (Mr Bhattacharya) is the most amazing man. All I can say is, if you are under his care and are fortunate to have him operate on you like I did, then you really are in the safest pair of hands. My after care in the HPB outpatients clinic was second to none as well and my HPB Nurse Specialist (Jake McGhie) went above and beyond. She even went as far as to give me her personal mobile number and said to contact her anytime which I did have to do on a couple of occasions. Nothing was too much trouble for her. Unfortunately, I had the misfortune of spending 3 weeks on Ward 3D where my stay was the worse I have ever received at the Royal London. The staff were rude and I felt racist (I am Female, White English). I was put on a morphine pump after my operation and the night after my operation my pump ran out and it took 6 hours for someone to change it. Despite my many requests to have it changed and my obvious pain, I was fobbed off by an awful agency nurse who had the nerve to say she didn't think I was that bad and she didn't know how to change the pump. When I asked why did she not try and find someone who could she tried to put all the blame on me and said as I wasn't making much of a fuss she didn't think I was that bad. When I challenged her and said so because I wasn't screaming the ward down you chose not to do anything about it and I would have thought with her being a nurse (I use that term loosely for her) surely she would understand if a patient is on a morphine pump it is for a very good reason, like they are in a lot of pain. She basically called me a liar and kept saying she didn't know how to change it so it was tough. I often had to tell the nurses how to change my morphine pump as they did not know how to do it or if it went wrong (like getting an air bubble) the little tricks on how to rectify it. On many occasions I did try to help them out they were often very rude and hostile and made me feel like I didn't know what I was talking about because I wasn't a nurse. When I tried to explain that I had spent many weeks in hospital and had become quite adapt to my care, this seemed to piss them off even more. It took my consultant to have a word with the Sister in charge of the ward to convince them I wasn't like the usual patients they dealt with (3D is a short term stay ward) and I had been admitted several times and understood my condition and treatment well. He had to do this after finding me in floods of tears one day after being ignored (again) for the whole day. No-one had even said good morning too me, this used to happen a lot. I am not a troublemaker or an attention seeker and asked for help very little but when I did it was a real effort. My husband tried extremely hard during my stay to get me moved up to Ward 13D but again the nurses kept telling the bed manager I would be going home the next day so they wouldn't move me, even though I ended up spending 3 weeks on there. I feel 13D should be used as a blueprint on how to run a hospital ward. Amazing staff, amazing doctors, even the cleaners got to know me really well and always treated me with the up most respect and dignity.