Share review of Royal Orthopaedic Hospital

Royal Orthopaedic Hospital 2021-03-29 Person 4 5 0

Staff were very friendly but there seemed to be a lot of different people doing similar jobs who weren’t sure who had already done what like bloods, filling in menus, checking / giving medications... I felt like I had no one particular member of staff responsible for my care so information was disjointed. I was in a lot of pain and didn’t have anyone asking me about this so didn’t know I could have had more pain relief I only found out 10hrs after surgery at 4am when I finally got enough pain relief to sleep. Staff did not consistently knock before entering my room and I felt uneasy about being exposed when using a urine bottle on the bed for example. Only about half the staff identified themselves and their job role and with so many coloured uniforms I didn’t really know who was who. Nice staff but very confusing as to who is who and who does what! Clear staff name badges would be useful: those yellow badges some hospitals use would be a good start: “hi, my name is...” One very positive point was that I was able to talk about my same-sex next of kin without anyone questioning this or making any presumptions about gender and sexuality. This is so important as I’ve had some quite difficult experiences elsewhere. The NHS Rainbow badge scheme would maybe help more too as this makes LGBT+ patients feel a whole load more comfortable. Not having to worry about outing yourself when you’re already in a stressful environment is vital.

The food offered post-surgery was to be honest, abysmal. After 24hrs without eating, I was given a dry, plain ham sandwich which I struggled to eat as my throat was sore after anaesthetic. The following morning, a further 12hrs later, I had two thin slices of brown toast for breakfast. (Wasn’t offered anything else? Is there no cereal?) and then they gave my lunch choice (vegan sandwich) to someone else so I didn’t get my choice of food: I was offered a pork pie salad with the pork pie taken off (that would have been offensive if I was actually vegan!). Post operative advice is to eat plenty of protein for healing but this was impossible based on the food offered. I thought nowadays hospital nutrition had been improved!! This was really unacceptable.