Royal Preston Hospital

Awful awful awful. Came the door was locked, the lift was out of order. So had to climb the stairs in the middle of having a baby terrible. Should not be ok on a maternity ward to expect that women have to do that on top of everything else. It was hell and to top it off being 7 weeks early after the hospital sending me home in agony the day before! Absolutely awful had to give birth then, to be told I was going to be put on a ward with no babies there was 5. Imagine that your baby is no where near you in an incubator. And you are surrounded by healthy screaming babies, your baby is no where near you because she’s early and she can’t be next to you. It was hell . I discharged myself because of this i was beyond upset at this. It was not right and it was cruel for a first time mum. Really not good. I was then told off my multiple midwife’s saying I had left my baby. No I was in an impossible situation where I wanted to leave and get some rest. I do not regret it after the horrible experience I had to go through at the hands of this hospital.

Terrible pain, had ct scan that detected gallstones in gall bladder, waited from Saturday to Tuesday for operation due to infection to try and clear with antibiotics. Operation done by keyhole surgery, surgeon and her whole team were amazing, very informative and sympathetic. Everyone I came into contact were very professional and only had my best interest at heart.

A&E manger gave patients nasty dirty looks in the waiting room

I would like to outline an overview of mine and my wife's experience whilst my wife was a patient at Royal Preston Hospital, Maternity Unit, between Sunday 9th March 2025 and Wednesday 12th March 2025. We arrived on the Sunday at 14:00 and left on the Wednesday at 13:05.

We arrived on the Sunday at 2pm and checked into maternity ward A. At around 4pm, a midwife [name redacted for privacy] introduced herself to us and went through the process of the induction. She firstly explained about how "the gel" would be given to my wife in an attempt to break her waters. This would be administered and then we would have to wait 6 hours, she said. Before this, [name redacted for privacy] took my wife's observations and also the babies which were all satisfactory. The gel was administered at 17.15. [name redacted for privacy] then explained that we would be observed at 23.15 to see what the state of play was in the delivery suite, to see if we could be moved upstairs if my wifes waters had not broken.

By this time, [name redacted for privacy] had finished shift and was replaced by a midwife named [name redacted for privacy]. [name redacted for privacy] explained how there had been no movements upstairs on delivery suite and there were no plans for us to move up. She again checked my wife's and baby's observations which were all fine.

The events of the morning of Monday 10th form the basis of this complaint and our experience as a whole. Upon handover in the morning, myself and my wife had a conversation with a midwife named Ellie, who was first class. This was the first transparent and honest conversation we had had with a midwife about the current state of the system in the maternity section. Ellie explained to us how there was a 3-5 day wait on inductions at present. She explained how there had been a patient waiting on the ward since the Friday before to be induced, and went on to explain how staff booking in inductions had booked in 8 patients a day for the past week, when they were only meant to be book in 5. This conversation was welcomed however we were left distressed, upset and anxious by this turn of events. We were also left angry and confused as to why a) we had only been told this now and why b) staff had booked in such a high number of inductions thus clogging up the system.

Around an hour later, a member of staff from Health Watch Lancashire came to speak to us regarding the current situation around planned inductions and how patients were being treated. I personally took a lead on this, explaining how I saw things and what a deplorable system it seemed like we had entered, with no regard for the patients physical or mental health, nor any regard for the patient's personal circumstances. In terms of personal circumstances, we explained that we had a 15-month-old at home who was being looked after by my retired parents. As you can appreciate, a 15-month-old is developing awareness and needless to say this experience has caused a significant amount of separation anxiety for him and his mother.
The member of staff at Health Watch Lancashire told us she had a direct line into management and would feed our experiences back . One simple suggestion I made was that it appeared like everyone was going to the same room, those who had gone into labor off the streets and those waiting for inductions. It appeared to us like the planned inductions were being treated as lesser patients to those who were coming in naturally. It is quite staggering that both sets of patients are deployed to the same room to give birth.

During the afternoon of the Monday, myself and my wife talked through numerous options available to us based on the risk of not being induced. Due to the disgraceful system, we had entered and the apparent "low risk" of the baby's health, we decided we were going to self-discharge. As two people who have no medical background, it is disgusting that either of us had to contemplate this. However, we were told we were being induced to the size of our baby's tummy. At no point whatsoever has this being addressed during our stay, nor has it afterwards. It was obvious from the start that this risk was extremely low and the staff during my wife's last week of pregnancy were simply "ticking boxes" and "covering themselves".

We would like to place on record our thanks to Dr Charlotte Cox, who Ellie organized for us to speak to. Dr Cox allowed us to leave the hospital for a period to go home and see our son due to our personal circumstances. She also went through out babies' growth graphs and explained why we were planned to be induced which was accepted, but still we stand by our points made in the previous paragraph. Dr Cox told us we were second in the queue and should be moved up soon. We went home and returned to hospital at 8pm that night, to be told we where number 1 in the queue.

At 9.25 the next morning, Natalie Dyer came down from the delivery suite to take us up. Natalie is a first-class midwife and the care she gave my wife during active labor was incredible. We would like to place on record our thanks to her. Our son was born on the 11th March at 18.20. Also present during the birth was a trainee doctor called Felecity who was respectful and courteous throughout. I am sure she will have a great career ahead.

The care we also received moving down to ward b was also fantastic, from midwives to doctors to discharge, the process ran efficiently.

What is not efficient and what has left a considerable amount of emotional scar tissue is the experience we had prior to birth. The lack of honesty, transparency and regard for patients' emotional wellbeing was deplorable. I am from a Police background and I have seen prisoners in custody treated better than those patients waiting to be induced. This is a sorry indictment of a system designed by ivory tower bureaucrats who are paid handsomely yet have absolutely no idea about the real world or have any regard for patients. I feel terrible for the midwives and doctors who are trained to care for patients, yet 50% of their job is to manage expectation and deliver bad news. It is disgusting that the NHS has allowed this to happen.

As well as these managers, the administration on show in the maternity unit is also scandalous. Low paid staff booking in "numbers" again with no regard for the wellbeing of patients or the system they are booking into. If this was a private company, these managers and admin staff would be sacked immediately. Because it's the NHS, they will no doubt sit round a big long table, discuss how the system can be improved and receive a slap on the wrist for poor performance. They will all go home to their ivory towers without a care in the world, leaving patients and highly skilled staff to suffer.

After the experience my wife and I have gone through, I would whole heartedly discourage people from being induced unless absolutely necessary. The system is completely and utterly broken, right from the start were measuring tapes from the 1950s are used to decide if there are growth issues, to the point that a patient is admitted and made to feel inferior for being induced and made to wait days upon days to have a baby.

This was meant to be one of the happiest and joyous moments of our lives. Yet, all we will do now is refer back to this experience every time we speak of our baby's birth. We will all heal and move on in time, but the memories will always remain of the disgusting system we entered. Thankfully, are baby is healthy which is even more ironic, given that we were induced yet no mention of the stomach issues which we were told off. This pretty much sums it up; we entered a broken system for no reason whatsoever.

We do not plan on having any more children, but i sincerely hope no other family goes through the experience we did. 71 hours door to door to be induced. An utter shambolic disgrace in which patients are in a system similar to that of cattle on a farm.

I was referred by my GP on the 17th January for a 2WW cancer assessment with Gynaecology. I spoke to my Consultant on the 7th February who assured Mr I'd have biopsies within 2 weeks to determine if I have cancer. It's the 28th February and I still don't have a date for the biopsy, I have no contact, and have been told there's a 8 week backlog. So much for the 2WW / 28 day faster diagnosis pathway.
I am already a breast cancer patient, and have a Datix report and internal investigation ongoing regarding the poor care during that treatment.
I'm now waiting for a Endometrial Cancer diagnosis due to being unnecessarily treated using a drug I didn't need that is linked to Endometrial Cancer.... and I'm still being made to wait weeks for a diagnosis.
It turns out that the bottom of the barrel does have a basement.

My 94 year old father spent 4 hours in an ambulance outside A and E, then 36 hours on a corridor. All the corridors were lined with stretchers. The staff appeared to be doing their best in horrific circumstances. It was like a natural disaster had struck- but this is apparently the norm. Just awful, no more words!

I have concerns around royal preston hospital. I went to a&e with heart attack and pneumonia around 11 months ago and was left in a&e for hours but i was cared for appropriately. I was transferred to the heart ward and there were staff on the ward that were showing off and came to my bed to show that she could change the bedding by herself with no support. this hurt me and I was too worried to say anything or complain at the time but i dont want it to happen to anyone else. the care up to that point had been really good, staff were caring and helped me but once on the ward i had a problem with this specific nurse who thought it was funny to show off. i wanted to now say something as staff shouldn't be changing bedding on their own without support or showing off to their colleagues. its a patient at the end of the day

i took my child to RPH a&e as they had a query dislocated hip and i had to take him myself as they told me the ambulance would be 3 hour wait. we got there and got morphine in them quite quickly but communication between staff was poor. we were taken to xray and they kept asking em to straighten him when they couldnt move. i told them it was dangerous to move him but they wouldnt listen. i had to advocate for my child and say take the Xray and then if we need to straighten him we will. They did a scan and said 'oh no don't move him it could cause more damage.' i couldn't believe what i had heard as if i had moved him this would have been really bad. i feel they need to listen to parents more and understand that what they ask could be life changing.

Was admitted on to sau ward on sat 30th Nov 24. Had really good service all day. Nothing was too much. By the night time staff were non existent. On the Sunday 1st was told i couldn't eat or drink as i was supposed to have ultrasounds and an mri. Had the ultrasound but nothing was mentioned about the mri. Still couldn't eat or drink. Come 17:00 still no mri and was told i could eat a low fat diet. But they had no food for me. Around 18:20 I was meant to be transferred to ward 12, I was taken there by the porter to be told my room wasn't ready. So back down to sau I go. At 22:30 I get taken back to ward 12 to be left in a space where I did not feel safe. And apparently was meant to sign a waiver because of how poor the space was. I was not comfortable to be left there, as no plug sockets so they had to unplug the bed so I could have my medication. I did not feel safe there so I got told I could go into the day room and was told I would be checked on regularly. Noone came to check on me. My partner and my dad both called to ask someone to come to me as I was suffering really bad with and anxiety attack and in pain. This is the worst experience I have ever had. I don't know why I got transferred so late at night, or why when they realised I felt unsafe, they didn't just take me back to sau. I was left alone, scared, neglected and like noone cared.

I couldn't count how many bad experiences I've had here. It took 3 days to be admitted with sepsis in 2018 to be told it was cold and left in a corner until my bloods came back. The amount of failures at this hospital is insane. You have paediatrians who are not referring on to specialists in a timely manner if at all. You have to wait a year for follow up appointments with your paediatric specialist too as they're so busy. You're orthopedic one was a joke who left so you got a retired McAvoy to come back for him to completely miss an obvious diagnosis for us to get re sent back to him but dropped cos he's retired again. Your secretaries don't respond to messages, don't ring back and they regularly lose patient files and referral.