University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust 2013-11-11 Person 3 5 0

On balance, I was well looked after during a three week stay in Southampton General, first in ICU and then on Ward D8. Most of the doctors and nurses were very good and some were outstanding. The thing which stood out was the lack of co-ordination between departments involving some log stay patients (not so in my case thankfully). Two such elderly patients were very keen to be discharged, but in one case an x-ray and in another case a cystoscopy were not organised (even though in the latter case the patient had an out patient appointment for the same procedure during his stay which he could not keep because he was on the ward), the result being that both patients were forced to stay in for an extra one and two days respectively, in consequence bed-blocking when they did not want or need to. In fact it caused them much stress which must have been bad for them overall. Better management would have saved the NHS money, kept bed occupancy at a lower, and therefore safer level and improved patient care in addition. Whilst there was no MRSA, Norovirus or other such nasty problems evident to me whilst I was there, I, even as a non medic, could see how such problems could take a hold all too easily. Firstly, the large number of agency staff must be costing the Trust more than if there were more permanent staff. Some were very good indeed and trying to get an NHS contract, but some were simply sloppy, slow, had very poor language skills (a large black girl in particular, so the EU problem was not responsible, who was not changing gloves when she should have been and was very unkind to a 92 year old in the next bed to me), all of these should not have been allowed to do more than a single shift, if HR could not detect potential problems them before the first. Secondly, the cleaning contract left a lot to be desired on D8. The toilets were frequently left in a simply disgusting state, why no half-hourly or hourly checks which even McDonalds manage. Most of the cleaners seemed to be Eastern Europeans and needed more training, with the exception of one such man who worked on the ward floors at the weekends and was super efficient and careful to do a really good job. He was nice with it as well, despite having only limited English language skills.