Spire Portsmouth Hospital 2021-12-07 Person 4 5 0

Inpatient experience/clinical care and hospitality/administrative side of the hospital are like night and day. Every aspect of the care I received as an inpatient was excellent from the moment I checked in for my lumpectomy to my departure the next day. Humane and compassionate as well as professional care from every nurse on the ward, the consultants that I encountered around my operation. Could not have been bettered. However, the hospital admin feels unprofessional and occasionally chaotic. It starts with the lack of acknowledgement when queuing at reception on arrival, given that there are often three staff sitting on the other side of the glass. This could be so easily fixed if the admin team was more patient-focused or with a designated greeter - coffee shops manage this with no problem - why not a private hospital? My pre-op assessment was administratively chaotic with my online questionnaire (uploaded the day before) apparently lost. Two days later I received a call from the bookings team that I needed to give another blood sample as "one of them was rejected". I immediately worried that my op would be cancelled or something was wrong. I asked why and was told that it was because one of my blood samples had been labelled incorrectly. Not what I wanted to hear three days before my lumpectomy. This is all about soft skills/communication style - but when you're feeling vulnerable as a cancer patient, and very focused on an upcoming operation, it makes all the difference. I feel that the administrative side lets the hospital down. Some fairly simple process tweaks and more patient-orientation through training would fix this. It needs to inspire the same confidence as the outstanding clinical team.