"Visiting time and the Welcome Ward"

Dear Relative1234,

Thank you for getting in touch. I’m sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I was on leave when your story came through and I also wanted to make sure that it reached the right people before I posted a response.

I have now spoken to, and am posting the below on behalf of, Jenny Gibb, Associate Nurse Director, Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership:

'We are really disappointed to hear of visitors being turned away from Aboyne Hospital due to protected mealtimes. The Welcome Ward initiative was introduced to all our hospitals a year ago and is a person-centred approach to hospital visiting that recognises the important role in care and support that carers, families and friends provide. We aim to welcome families, carers and friends to visit as much as their family member or friend would like, as we truly believe this helps create a positive atmosphere and can aid recovery. We are sorry that something seems to have gone amiss in Aboyne and can understand that it will have caused some distress. Your story has, however, highlighted an improvement that we need to make and we have already been in touch with the Nurse in Change to offer support to move forward and implement change.

Thanks again for bring this to our attention.'

I'm not sure if your friend or family member will be visiting Aboyne Hospital again soon, but it would be great to hear how they get on the next time. If you’d like to, you can contact me on this thread, by email (kirsten.dickson@nhs.net) or by telephone (01224 558404).

Best wishes,

Kirsten

Dear Relative 1234

Thank you very much for sharing your story.

I too am sorry that this happened but I'm confident your story will help to initiate further improvement, especially from Kirsten and Jenny's response above.

NHS Grampian has been leading the way nationally with their "Welcome Ward" initiative and I'm really pleased to hear about the positive experience you had recently at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, even though it contrasted sharply with this experience at Aboyne Hospital.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with health boards to help them develop a visiting culture that is more family and carer friendly. We recognise that it is important for families to stay connected at difficult or stressful times in life, especially when a loved one is in hospital. We'll make sure we share your story with the wider group working on this in all the other Scottish health boards so that we can all learn from your experience and use it to help our improvement work.

I'm also particularly sorry that you were kept away from your relative at a mealtime. Mealtimes are very important for families, especially for older people. The protected mealtimes policy was designed to protect patients from unnecessary clinical interventions, not to protect them from their family. I know the team at NHS Grampian understand this and I'm sure that they will be supporting the ward teams to clarify how this policy should be applied in practice. This will also be very helpful to share with the other health boards too, as I'm certain this experience is not unique to Aboyne Hospital.

Thank you once again for sharing your story and thank you for helping us in our efforts to improve.

Shaun