"End of life care for my grandad"

My 93 year old Grandad was very suddenly taken ill and was taken to A and E resus after deteriorating very quickly. We as a family were called in and the whole team in resus were just amazing, so caring and compassionate and took their time to explain everything to me. He was then transferred to majors 2 where he again received brilliant care and the consultant was amazing and so empathetic to our situation.

My grandad was unfortunately made palliative and we were in a side room. Family had to travel down from London and the consultant reassured us we would be allowed to stay in the side room. As an ex nurse I was very aware of moves and transfers that can happen especially overnight and asked that this be cleared with the site managers. At half past one in the morning not long after family had arrived from London one of the hospital managers informed us they were going to be moving my palliative grandad to a bay on another ward. As you can imagine this is just not acceptable that us as a family would have no privacy in saying goodbye, my grandad would have no dignity in his death and the whole situation being unfair on other patients subjected to having to witness and hear this.

I obviously declined and said this is unacceptable. 10 minutes later they came back and said they had managed to secure us a side room so why put us through this as a devastated and tired family. I felt this made what had so far been such a positive experience suddenly extremely negative and distressing.

Thankfully the ward was Lowen and I cannot commend this ward enough. They comforted us and our grandad straight away and wasted no time in ensuring all the right measures were put in place to ensure he was comfortable and we were fully informed. The care he and us as a family received was second to none, from nurses to  health care staff to domiciliary. Everyone was so caring and empathetic and really reignited my faith in nursing.

Nurses Sarah, Patricia, Gladys, Gwen, Helen and Anna were extraordinary and encompassed everything that nurses aspire to be. Health care Lorna, David and AP Jenna and Heidi. There may have been more and I’m sorry to anyone not mentioned that was involved in my grandads care. This ward and the staff are an absolute credit to this hospital and my grandad passed after 4 days in the most peaceful and dignified way.

Their end of life care was exceptional. We as a family could not be more indebted to these wonderful people and ward. Thank you all so much. Keep being amazing.