Pop-up engagement at Royal Preston Hospital
Healthwatch Lancashire conducted a pop-up engagement event at Royal Preston hospital on Tuesday 14th March 2023 from 10:30am-1:30pm.
The aim of this visit was the gain feedback about the hospital and share this directly with the Trust to champion patients’ views and provide insight to help improve the service.
Healthwatch Lancashire asked the following questions:
- Apart from your care and treatment, what are the things that matter most to you when you visit the hospital?
- Is there anything that has gone well with your hospital treatment?
- Is there anything the hospital can learn from?
We spoke to 13 patients and 7 relatives during the visit. During the visit representatives spoke to patients who were attending Preston Hospital for the first time and couldn’t comment on the care they had received or answer the questions.
During the visit, Healthwatch were informed that some clinics had been cancelled on the day due to ongoing strike action.
Below is the feedback received during the visit to Royal Preston Hospital.
Apart from your care and treatment, what are the things that matter most to you when you visit the hospital?
“Parking is really important to me as I can’t walk very far but I struggle to find parking at times.”
“I struggle with the signage, there are a lot of abbreviations on the boards, and they should have the full names on them.”
“That I am treated with respect.”
“I have been to this hospital a few times now and what is important is that I stay on one ward and not get moved around so much, the care that is provided is not as good when you get moved around a lot.”
“Transport to and from the hospital is very important to me as I can’t get myself here.”
“Parking with ease would alleviate a lot of stress before you enter the hospital.”
“More support within the hospital finding our way around, all the volunteers and staff are at the front desk but no one near the lifts to help point you in the right direction, last time I came I had to walk back to reception for help as no other staff members were around.”
“That the hospital is COVID secure and all the correct protocols are in place.”
“Working lifts, I came last month and no lifts were working, this didn’t help when I have a physical disability.”
“That my family member is cared for and treated right.”
“The signage is quite hard at times, someone based near the lifts would be very helpful.”
Is there anything that has gone really well for you that we can learn from and do more of this?
“Yes, all the staff are so friendly and communicate with me during my appointment.”
“Everything is great in terms of the staff members they are lovely and helpful; they are just massively overworked.”
“The staff are so helpful.”
“The staff are doing their best and doing all they can, I can’t fault them for that.”
Other comments
“It is very overcrowded on the wards and wards that should only have 4 beds have 5-7 beds.”
“The care is good, but the staff are rushed off their feet.”
“Wards are getting used for other patients, for example, I was put on a stroke unit for diabetes as there were no beds and then I was transferred to diabetic ward and there were patients with dementia and stroke patients, I was the only diabetic there.”
“Being discharged too early because of capacity means that patients end up coming back as they haven’t fully recovered, my relative was in the ward and then got discharged too early due to demand of patients and not enough staff and now they are back on the ward as they didn’t have time to fully recover.”
“It would be lovely if we could get more beds and more staff but I understand that it is difficult right now, I see my relative on a ward that should only have 4 patients and there are 7 patients in the ward, it is very overcrowded and the poor staff are running around.”
“The lifts can be hard work sometimes, I come regularly for appointments and I cant get up the stairs so I rely on the lifts and sometimes I can be waiting 10 minutes for a lift to come to my floor.”
A spokesperson for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said:
“We would like to thank colleagues who helped us on the day of the visit and for their continued support in our partnership with Healthwatch. We are keen to continue working together moving forward to work on the feedback provided from patients and establishing the views of our community.”
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust would like to thank Healthwatch for their valuable engagement and time spent with our patients and community. It is a wonderful opportunity for us to receive real feedback, looking at the issues that affect our patients and hearing about what we are doing well.
We would like to thank all our patients who took the time to give feedback and we will look to address any of the concerns that were raised. We look forward to Healthwatch’s next visit and working together.”
Do you have feedback about a health or social care service? You can do so via our independent Feedback Centre