Royal Preston Hospital

The unit has a friendly and calm atmosphere. The staff were lovely and caring.

my husband was in Preston hospital on the medical assessment unit and was discharged into care. they said they had provided him with a DNR so wherever he ended up they would be able to see this and have it over his bed. when he got transferred out of the hospital the place he ended up in rang me and told me to verify his date of birth and name and i was wandering why. they told me the DNR that was given to me at the hospital had the wrong date of birth on which made it invalid. i couldn't believe this, i have been back and changed this but surely this shouldn't be happening.

ive had an awful time at Royal Preston hospital with gynaecology, ive had multiple surgeries and i saw my consultant at the end of last year and they said "i think we need to try something more holistic instead of surgeries" but then didnt give any alternative options. they have put me on some medication to stop the symptoms of endometriosis and ive been told to basically get on with it. the medication they have put me on has put me into early menopause and i didnt know that would happen. i was told to take the medication and i would receive a follow up appointment. it is now August and i haven't received one. the communication is poor within gynaecology and i feel the staff and the secretaries dont want to speak to you and see you as an inconvenience.

i got taken into RPH a&e in October last year. i am in my 60's and the ambulance picked me up, i was only in a nighty and was sat in the waiting area from 7am until 8pm at night. i only got a bed at 8pm and only saw a doctor at 1am the following morning. the care was dreadful and i had a scan on my back which wasnt the problme my leg was. they didnt listen to me at all when i told them they were scanning the wrong place. i had two dpctors who wouldnt listen to my story about what had happened. they kept telling me i needed to walk when i clearly couldnt. i stayed over night and the nurses and doctors told my sister i had refused to walk when i hadnt refused at all, i literally couldn't walk. in the morning the ward sister came to see me and said "why are you still here, you should be at home with pain medication." i felt awful as noone had sent me home or even discussed with me about going home.

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!