Infirmary and Lakes

[Ashtonian54]

I like Christine Green's answer.
It's the epitome of a corporate answer whenever a responsible body is put under the spotlight and asked to answer for something.
It's like they all have this book where they get their answers from.

[Nan]

I can only speak for my own treatment at Tameside, but I`m sure there must be lots of others like me. I have been admitted as an in-patient twice in the last 20 months, the first being for emergency major surgery, and on both occasions , could not fault the care and attention I received. I was admitted on the first occasion one week after diagnosis, had my operation, spent 2 days in Intensive Care and then back on the ward for the remainder of my stay, and nothing was too much trouble for any of the nursing staff or any member of the other staff. I attend out-patients for check-ups every 6 months and find the staff excellent there too. Maybe I`m just one of the lucky ones, but I`ve certainly nothing but praise for them.

[Vanessa]

I'm afraid my experience of Tameside General was the opposite, I found both the care and attitude of the nurses below acceptable standards, if I had done half of what those nurses did when I worked there I would have been dragged over the coals. I still can't understand why when I asked the ward sister about my mother I had to trail around looking for the nurse who was  "looking after her", when I was a sister I had to know everything about every patient. Even as a student nurse I had to know every patient's name and what was wrong with them, I can remember working night duty and the nursing officer coming to do a ward round with you, god help you if you didn't know your stuff, but it made us good nurses. When my mother was rushed into hospital, the only caring nurse was what I would call old School, she got me a cup of tea and made sure I was alright, to quote her "the nurses these days, they go to college and come here thinking they know everything and they know nothing" and I agree with her. The only way to learn nursing is on the wards and not college.
Can someone tell me how a 96yr old woman with a broken hip is supposed to eat her dinner that has been placed on the table at the foot of her bed, that's what happened to my friend, everytime we went to see her, that's where her dinner was, stone cold.

Vanessa

[GayJ]

Anyone watch Panorama last night?  When my daughter was working at the Patterson Institute in the early 90s, Tameside had a bad reputation then from amongst the medical and nursing fraternity and they have been allowed to self assess since then.

When my husband was dying we did everything we could to get him home - he just did not feel safe.  The overworked staff tried their best but simply did not have time.  Night staff blocking feeding tubes, tablets under the bed, urine bottles staying on the windowsills and leaking for at least 24 hours.  The man in the next bed having fits and soiling himself.  Staff washing thier hands but having to touch the shared curtains first to get to the sink.

Mike had then to be put on a drip for 48 hours before he could have a peg inserted into his stomach to feed him, he was terrified of an infection getting into his stomach from the patient in the next bed.  No proper seal so that liquid feed was leaking outside his body.

We did manage to get him home four days before he died, and I can only say that the care he got outside in the community by district nurses and other professionals was first class - nothing was too much trouble and the equipment which kept arriving, sometimes three times daily.  Our doctor was exceptionally pleased with the care we gave my husband in those last days - total crash course in nursing.  So worth it because at last he could relax.

[Albert]

 It seems pot luck at Tameside hospital I went in for a hernia operation
 it should have been just an over night stay but I got an infection and
 was in for two weeks and it was weeks before I was right
 My brother went in for the same operation on a Saturday morning and
was home the same day.I think Tameside is a dirty place since they had
 contract cleaners and the toilets were just a bog with soiled linen stored
 on the way in   Albert

[sooty]

they have closed Kings Lynn queen elizabeth hospital to visitors yet again due to a virus! James Paget hospital in Gt.Yarmouth gets a bad score for patient care. it,s not just Tameside it,s the whole N.H.S,it,s the envy of the world we are told,so how come no other country has copied it.Took my wife over to the Norfolk and Norwich was there for about a hour cost £2 to park my car.pity the poor sods who have to go every day for treatment,must cost an arm and a leg. get well soon!

[Meg]

My experience of Tameside Hospital is that standards have deteriorated. I was taken in one Christmas Eve in the 70s whilst up from London visiting my Mum and Dad. I had an emergency operation and the care I received both in A&E and on the ward was exemplary. 
More recently I spent all day once with my very confused Mother on A&E after she'd had  a fall. I was acting like an auxiliary nurse in there. A chap lying on a trolley started to have a fit and I was rushing round trying to find someone to help him but it was like the Marie Celeste. An elderly lady confided in me that she'd been there for hours and hadn't had anything to eat or drink and she was diabetic. Off I went to get her some sustenance. Then the final straw was when the nurse sent me off with my Mum to get an urine sample from her and gave me the litmus strip to test it! 
When my Dad was in there for the last few months of his life in 2007 I was travelling up from Warwickshire every week & always found it difficult to find anyone to talk to about him. Like Vanessa I could rarely find anyone who had any detailed knowledge of him as their patient.
 He had given up by that point, having nursed my Mum with Alzheimers - he was just exhausted. He gave up eating- I knew what he was doing; he was starving himself as he wanted to die. One little upstart of a nurse told me 'he needs psychiatric treatment. We're going to put a peg in his stomach.."  I told her over my dead body.  I eventually insisted on an appointment with the ward doctor so that I could find out what was going on..   Not much it seemed.
 At one stage my Dad was in Shire Hill in Glossop where they were trying to get him on his feet again after several falls. The care there was wonderful and I had several conversations on the phone with a lovely Irish nurse who made me feel she knew my Dad as a person not just a name.

My own experience of Warwick Hospital  was pretty poor too. I was in  a ward with a lot of old people and I was shocked at how they were treated by the staff- no dignity, no-one helping them to eat; ignored pleas for bed pans. It wasn't that there were no staff, just that they seemed to prefer hanging around the central desk/nurses' station rather than engage with the people in their care.

[jan]

My partner has had a few years of health problems (hopefully on the mend now) and we were lucky enough for him to be treated at Addenbroke and Papworth hospitals.  I can't speak highly enough of the staff, conditions and treatment at there.
When he was first diagnosed we spent a lot of time reading posts on the web site for his type of cancer and some of the stories made me cry.  One man was in the last stages of his illness and his daughter reported on the apalling mistakes made during his "care" and how he suffered because of them.

[Albert]

   My wife went in Christy's for radiotherapy for a brain tumour
   but died from a perforated bowel because of neglect taking
   her to the toilet.We know she was confused. but even when
   she passed away they were to busy to phone us.
   Is any hospital safe I wonder  Albert