"Our experience in GRI"

My husband presented to A&E with a bleed to his stomach and vomiting blood. We were assessed very quickly and he was admitted and had an endoscopy and a lower abdomen CT the next day. After the endoscopy he was taken to HDU and that night were told there were some bony abnormalities picked up on the CT and they were running various tests. The following day we received the devastating news he had advanced prostrate cancer.

I want to take the opportunity to highlight the outstanding care he received and the compassion and empathy we both received from all the members of staff involved in his care.

I would like to make a special mention to Dr Templeman in A&E, Ms Leggit the GI consultant and Dr Rollo in HDU and Mr Palmer the urology consultant in particular Dr Rollo who had to break this news to us. She was absolutely amazing and we will be eternally grateful for the compassion and support she gave to us. She went out of her way to explain everything to us and made a point of checking in on us even when she wasn’t working in HDU that day and I don’t have the words to explain how much that helped.

I’d also like to highlight how wonderful all the staff in HDU were from the nurses to the domestic staff everyone made this journey the very best it could be. In particular the following nurses - Gemma, Janice, Jen, Laura, Gerry, Claire, Rachel and Heather.

I’m a fellow nhs employee and all I can say is the way your staff conducted themselves makes me very very proud to be part of the NHS.