"Nightmare place"

About: Springfield University Hospital (London)

Was admitted here to ward 1 for three weeks and it was awful. The staff don't seem to care as many are agency staff, there is a lack of respect for patients who are given few choices and told they lack capacity to make decisions. You can give feedback on computer terminals but never receive a reply and nothing gets acted on. The doctors don't seem to know their patients background at all and when I asked why I was told my old paper records had been lost and the new ones on the computer had not been entered properly. I was lucky I was finally discharged and I would not go back or recommend this hospital/prison to anyone.

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Responses

Response from Victoria Gregory, Deputy Associate Director of Governance, Patient Experience Team, South West London & St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust 10 years ago
We have made a change
Victoria Gregory
Deputy Associate Director of Governance, Patient Experience Team,
South West London & St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust
Submitted on 21/05/2014 at 17:19
Published on Care Opinion at 17:51


picture of Victoria Gregory

Dear Mark

I am sorry we have not responded sooner – your posting has only just reached us due technical issues with Patient Opinion. They will be writing their own posting about it.

I am very sorry to hear about the negative experience you had on Ward One at Springfield Hospital. Often people are admitted to Ward One when they are particularly unwell as it is an intensive care unit and sometimes the environment and atmosphere on the ward can be disturbed. All staff strive to do their best to develop a therapeutic and beneficial relationship with their clients in this context but I am sorry that this was not your experience of the ward. I have fed back your comments to the ward manager.

High staffing numbers are required on the Ward and it does from time to time need to make use of agency staff who work alongside the permanent staff. All agency staff are expected to abide by their code of professional conduct and are fully supported by the permanent ward staff.

I would like to apologise that you felt that there was a lack of respect on the ward for you and your fellow patients. Staff on Ward One recognise the views of the clients and always seek to involve them in decisions about their care. Inevitably, as all clients admitted to Ward One are detained under a Section of the Mental Health Act, there can be disagreement between staff who feel clinically that it is appropriate for a patient to be on the ward and patients themselves who may not agree that they should be detained. This can come up between staff and patients when discussing care plans and treatment options. Due to this a patient may feel that their views have not been taken into account for this reason.

The Trust welcomes feedback from patients and as you have mentioned there is a ‘Real time Feedback’ kiosk on the ward. There have been problems with the kiosk in the past so I would like to apologise that you were unable to see the response to any feedback you had left. The kiosk is now up and running once more and the ward has installed a lockable notice board which gives updates on changes that have been made on the ward as a result of feedback provided by clients.

Many thanks for raising your concerns. If there is anything you would like to discuss further or if you would like any issues to be dealt with more formally then please contact our me at complaintsmanager@swlstg-tr.nhs.uk

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Response from Tim Hunt, Head of Partnerships and Safeguarding, Care Opinion 10 years ago
Tim Hunt
Head of Partnerships and Safeguarding,
Care Opinion
Submitted on 23/05/2014 at 10:20
Published on Care Opinion at 10:21


picture of Tim Hunt

Dear Mark,

I wanted to quickly come on and add our apologies here at Patient Opinion. As Victoria says above the delay in the posting coming onto the site was due to a technical glitch between us and NHS Choices. This meant that the trust have not been able to respond until now.

Best wishes

tim

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