Good & Bad NHS Hospitals – Why does the quality vary so much?
*** UPDATE 30/09/2010 – Selly Oak Hospital is now closed and it’s been replaced by a brand new super hospital that boasts some of the latest state of the art equipment at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. They also pledge to see 98% of patients within 4 hours. From my experience, Birmingham Heartlands Hospital has also provided a similar good service to the old Selly Oak Hospital. City Hospital however remains open for the for-see-able future.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
Unfortunately my friend and I have both needed hospital attention recently and I’ve also accompanied another friend to A&E on a number of occasions throughout the past year. I’ve been to both City Hospital and Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham in the UK on a number of occasions. The difference in the quality of service between the 2 NHS hospitals is vast and Selly Oak Hospital is much better than City Hospital in every way from my personal experience. From now on I will travel further to Selly Oak Hospital and won’t use City Hospital again unless I have no other option.
In City Hospital the whole atmosphere is different in Accident & Emergency to Selly Oak Hospital. The way the staff treat you and their whole attitude has in my experience fallen short of what one would expect from an NHS Hospital in the UK and I could give lots of examples. One normally has to wait a lot longer and are often left sitting in a very small room sometimes for hours where one doesn’t even know what’s happening as communication between staff and patients is usually poor. I’ve had personal experience of staff with a very bad attitude in City Hospital, once my friend was very worried, not knowing what was going on for literally 7 hours, left in a small room thinking he might be seriously ill. I tried to explain that my friend was feeling claustrophobic in the small room, but staff didn’t listen throughout and when I asked a nurse what was happening very politely I got literally shouted at in a bad temper saying, “I’ll get the doctor” with a very nasty tone of voice. The way I was spoken to was utterly wrong, but if I’d have spoken back in the same manner, I’d be the one being banned and thrown out. My friend experienced very similar bad attitude with one of the doctors on a previous visit and when he made a formal complaint very politely to reception, the staff didn’t want to help and the same doctor came out and had another go at my friend for complaining. They are slow and inefficient in comparison to Selly Oak Hospital, I’ve seen numerous patients who are clearly very ill just left in corridors for hours or curled up on chairs in pain without help from staff. I’ve seen elderly & disabled patients left waiting for an X-ray and I’ve overheard staff making very inappropriate jokes about them when they were having trouble breathing, this was disgusting and extremely shocking in my opinion.
*** UPDATE 30/09/2010 – Please also see the comment below this article for another example of poor service provided at City Hospital in Birmingham.
In Selly Oak Hospital the atmosphere is calm and relaxed in Accident & Emergency. One is dealt with quickly and efficiently by friendly and approachable staff. One is kept informed exactly what is going on throughout with the maximum of respect. One feels trust for the staff here and I can only praise them. It’s a totally different hospital to City Hospital and I can also praise Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham where I’ve also had very positive experiences.
All NHS hospitals should provide the same high level of service in the UK. All NHS staff should treat patients with a high level of respect as they expect patients to treat them no matter which hospital they work for. The quality service shouldn’t vary to such a massive degree from one hospital to another and it’s therefore important for the NHS to address this problem and work harder on retraining staff and improving hospitals that aren’t up to scratch in the United Kingdom.
Disclaimer:
The above article is without prejudice to City Hospital, Heartlands Hospital, any staff or the NHS and is my personal opinion only. It should not be taken as definite fact. My full legal disclaimer applies to this document and all other documents on this website.
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Comment from admin
Time September 30, 2010 at 9:32 am
Latest Visit To City Hospital
My friend was taken to City Hospital in Birmingham by Ambulance since he swallowed a sharp piece of glass that was found in a packet of crisps. He was in a lot of pain and very uncomfortable indeed. As usual I can’t complement the Ambulance staff enough who were excellent and very supportive throughout.
City Hospital A&E was however the quietest I’ve ever seen with most of the bays empty in the treatment rooms. Only a couple of people at any one time were in the reception area, but most of the time there was no-one at all waiting when I popped out at various times for some fresh air.
Being so quiet I expected my friend to be dealt with quicker, WRONG! Despite being extremely quiet throughout A&E, my friend was still forced to wait for literally close to 3 hours just to be seen by a doctor and when he complained about the pain to a passing nurse after being abandoned for around 2 hours, he was just told that he’d just have to bare with them for even longer and she told him this in what was my opinion a blunt manor even though he was very polite to her. My friend was in the majors section, but when I glanced through, even the minors area was extremely quiet. I even saw staff sitting back drinking tea / coffee because it was that quiet, so there really was NO excuse what-so-ever in my opinion for this severe delay, plus the delay could have had very serious adverse implications to his health.
After finally being seen by a doctor, my friend was eventually X-rayed, but by this time the glass had apparently un-wedged itself and moved towards his intestines. After around 4 hours waiting, he was finally admitted to the Surgical Assessment Unit ward, but the ‘beds’ were very uncomfortable and were in fact narrow hospital trolleys instead. After waiting another few hours, he was told that he should have been X-rayed virtually immediately after admission and that the wait could have caused more serious problems where he’d could have needed an urgent operation, but he was lucky.
My friend has still got a lot of pain in his throat and down to his stomach. He can only eat very squashy food and even this is very painful. Apparently if he was X-rayed immediately as he should have been, they could have removed the stuck glass from his throat when it was actually still stuck there, meaning he wouldn’t have been put at any more risk. Also they’d be a lot less damage for his body to heal, he’d have suffered less pain and he’d have been sent home much quicker. In other words, by making my friend wait unnecessarily for hours upon hours wasted a lot more of everyone’s time.
Finally on a good note, I will say that the staff in the Surgical Assessment Unit were pleasant and more helpful than in A&E. Unfortunately in my opinion City Hospital’s A&E department needs urgent improvement and procedures near to be overhauled as the standard of care is in my opinion no where near acceptable. I wish inspectors would go in and pose as customers.
(The comment above is also without prejudice to City Hospital or their A&E departmeand is my own personal opinion that cannot be declared as definite fact!)