How likely would you be to recommend a friend or relative to visit the emergency ward of an NHS hospital?

Had to get an X-Ray today for an injured toe at the ***** **** Hospital in London. I wouldn’t have written about it, except I got a call asking for my satisfaction rating.

I scored 4 out of 5. Where “1” was “highly likely to recommend” and “5” was “highly unlikely to recommend” that hospital to friends and family.

BTW, what kind of a rating is that? In the National Health Service we don’t “recommend” a hospital for an emergency, it gets decided for us. Good luck Americans and French people, this is the future you’ve now voted for.

It was not as bad as my last visit (that time the staff tried to give a relative two doses of the same intravenous drug, didn’t want to know when I pointed out the duplication, and don’t seem to have bothered keeping a record of the incident), but shockingly poor organisation, as usual.

One staff (I don’t think health care professional titles are appropriate) was calling out patient names incorrectly: middle names instead of surnames (I’m not sure if she could understand when someone pointed this out to her). Three staff were trying to call the same person. A woman who was bleeding and afraid of losing her baby was essentially told to go in a corner and miscarry quietly, because the computer said “No”.

The “cleaner” would have been sacked by McDonalds. In fact, I’d rather eat of the floor in a McDonalds than walk barefoot in some NHS hospitals I could name.

Two staff had colds or the flu and were coughing on patients in the ER. I thought hospital staff with throat infections were supposed to stay away from patients. Silly me.

With all this in mind, I told the caller that in a life-threatening situation I would look for any alternative hospital if possible.

Anyhow, I was asked what I thought and gave it, with both barrels. I must say, the aftercare HAS improved a lot… I completely forgot all about my toe. Maybe I’m wrong, I should give the place a “1”.