Bradwell Hospital – North Integrated MSK service NIMS
Quarter 1 2024/25
Concern:
Service user said he had an appointment at Bradwell Hospital at 8:30am on 22 May 2024; however, when he arrived nobody was available on reception and although he asked one of the nursing staff, he was told to sit in the waiting area, and somebody would probably call his name. He sat there until 15 mins past his appointment. By then the main reception was being manned so he went to reception and was told he was sat in the wrong part of the hospital. He was redirected to where he needed to be. The person he was supposed to see eventually came and gave him a ticket to rebook an appointment and said he was sorry that he couldn't see him, as he had another patient due to be seen.
He also complained that he had to leave a message, having rung the Customer Service number seven times because he wanted to talk to someone, didn't want to leave a message and it just went onto the same message loop.
Response:
The Deputy Head of Facilities wishes to share her sincere apologies that your experience was not of the required standard of the one we try to uphold as a Trust and hopes to reassure you that by sharing the plan of improvements and learning with you, it demonstrates our desire to ensure all patients feedback is listened to and acted on.
The Operational Lead for NIMS has reviewed the letter sent to you specifying the details of your appointment. Upon review she has noted that on the letter there is no department listed. This will be an ongoing improvement, and she is hopeful the resulting change will minimise issues with patients not being informed of where to go.
We wish to again share our apologies that your experience at Bradwell Hospital was not of the standard required. We hope by using patient's experiences, that we can improve and deliver better care and treatment to the people using our services.
The Customer Service telephone service operates from 09:30 until 4pm Monday to Friday. If the telephone lines are busy, there is a voicemail in operation and the team will aim to respond within 24 hours. I am sorry that a member of our team was not available to answer your incoming call.
The actions following this are as follows:
- The Facilities Manager is preparing a 'Way Finding' map. The map is currently under review to ensure that the information is user friendly.
- The NIMS service is working with IT to include the department information on their appointment letters, for the Bradwell Site.
- The Operational Lead will also be providing feedback to clinicians to look in other waiting areas if a patient is not present in the department waiting area.
- Customer Service and Experience Staff have been reminded of the importance of answering telephone calls in a timely manner within the opening hours.