Bexhill Hospital

I waited an hour beyond my appointment time this morning, and had to cancel another important appointment because of this. I understand that different patients take different times and the care is important. However my self and other patients and relatives, plans and arrangements were very disrupted by the delay.If we hadnt approached the staff we would not have been given any information at all about the delay of the time we would have to wait.It says on the poster thta a senior member of staff check the clinics, hourly, there was no evidence of this today.If Doctors need extra the patients, please check the data you must hold on these times and reallocate appointments to ensure people are seen on time or just a short delay. I visited the Thoracic medicine outpatients department

Reply from East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 16:36:53 +0100

Thank you for taking the time to leave us some feedback about your recent experience of the Outpatient Department at Bexhill Hospital; we very much appreciate it. The Trust works hard to provide a high standard of care to all patients, and so we are very disappointed to read this has not been your experience. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and upset caused to you by the delays you encountered. As you have helpfully pointed out clinics can overrun, particularly if the clinician or patient need extra time to talk about symptoms, diagnosis, treatment or test results. Whilst patient appointments are booked as part of an allocation system to manage clinic throughput, it is important to us that patients do not feel they are being rushed and have time to ask for clarification of information or ask questions. It is the role of staff managing the Outpatient Department to keep patients advised of and updated on any delays, and we are sorry if this did not happen when you attended for your appointment. This is a failure of our values to treat patients with dignity and respect, and demonstrate a good standard of communication. Please accept our apologies for this, together with our assurance that your feedback will be shared with senior clinical staff and managers to ensure we learn from your experience. If you would like to discuss your concern in more detail, then please do not hesitate to contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) at esh-tr.palsh@nhs.net or by calling the team on 01424 758090. We very much hope that whilst your appointment was delayed and had a knock-on effect with a subsequent appointment you had diarised, the appointment went well and had a positive outcome. We wish you all the very best for good health now and in the future.

My elderly mother is in here and when she paid a visit to the toilet her skirt dropped into the bowl and became rather dirty. The staff said they would sort it out but no all they did was to stick it in a special bag which would stop it smelling. I find this really unprofessional and rather disgusting hardly what you can call a caring place to be. It would have been quite simple just to have removed the worst of it but no too much like hard work. It will now be down to me when I visit to sort this out. This really upsets my Mum as it wasnt her fault after all they are meant to be helping her to get back on her feet. Up until this happened it seemed to be a great place but I now have serious doubts.