Royal Blackburn Hospital

A person discussed an experience in A&E at Royal Blackburn Hospital for mother with dementia just less than a year ago. She said that initially the experience in A&E was fine until she was sent to a ward. She said the hospital overall “appeared very full and felt understaffed”. There was confusion around the transfer to a ward.
The ward was inappropriate for someone with dementia. She did praise a member of staff (Sandra Nuttall) for being sympathetic and helping but when she was moved to another ward there were still a number of issues she felt was a result of not enough staff and a lack of awareness of treating people with dementia.
She did state “At the time I was very understanding with staff but later on I wish I had of been more assertive.”
She felt that they were blanked by staff.
She said “I avoid going to Royal Blackburn Hospital.”

“Butterfly scheme at Royal Blackburn is excellent – it is a great example of work. However, staff need more awareness of it.”

I wouldnt have minded waiting, it was not the waiting time that bothered me as I'm well aware there can be emergencies however we waited 45 minutes without anyone informing us and there was no one at reception. It would have been better to have someone on the desk who informed us what was happening.

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Helpful staff

Everybody was lovely. I came out of the BUPA just before I had an accident but I can't praise the NHS enough.

Fantastic service. They really looked after her

She was laid down flat on her back for the reason that she was in hospital, so she couldn't sit up to eat. They kept bringing her food and just putting it next to her and then taking it away uneaten- she couldn't eat and she didn't the whole time she was there.

My father has advanced Parkinson's. He was admitted last January but he was not given his Parkinson's medication. He went through Royal Blackburn A&E for a suspected stroke and told he would be either admitted onto a ward or discharged if he had not had a stroke. They didn't give him a scan until three days into the stay. None of the nurses knew how to do the morphine pump so my mum came to do it everyday. Part of having Parkinson's for my dad means he has hallucinations but he has learnt to live with it, however because of the hallucinations they tweaked his medication. This has an affect on him and after this he was not the same man as when he went in - he appeared high. It's really dangerous to change Parkinson's medication even the brand, so I don't know why they thought this was a good idea. You can't treat people with Parkinson's like other patients - they need the timing of their medication on an individual basis rather than it being routine at the same time everyday. They gave him purified food as well which he couldn't eat. It was also a one mile walk from the car park to the ward and my mum wasn't happy having to pay for parking when she was doing the morphine pump when she was there.

I only came in yesterday so I can't say much about the quality. I need an operation to remove cancer from my tongue. I have come from Bolton hospital but in Bolton they did not put me on a special diet to build me up, so the consultant here has said that it's doubtful I will wake up from the operation. They have put me on a special diet today in preparation for my operation, probably this weekend. When I was in Bolton they didn't give me medication often enough, but here has been brilliant.