"Gallbladder removal -acute cholecystitis."

Overall my experience at Carlisle hospital has been a very positive one. This is entirely down to the positive & professional attitude of all the medical and nursing staff I encountered including the nursing staff in ambulatory care, the recovery ward and Beech Ward, the anaesthetist who patiently talked me through the procedure before my operation and especially the consultant surgeon who carried out the operation.

I required the removal of an inflamed gallbladder complicated as it had blocked, leaked and fused to the liver. Nevertheless, the surgeon was able to complete the operation by keyhole surgery despite having to remove the gallbladder in sections and delicately cut it away from the liver. I am not only grateful for his skills as a surgeon but for is caring consultancy during the months while a liver abscess was dealt with and his understanding of my fears of surgery so that I was reassured about the procedure and had confidence all would be well. This was vital for me in controlling pre-operation stress. It became especially important when my operation scheduled for October 19th was cancelled, literally at the 11th hour. This was particularly distressing as I had been mentally preparing myself for weeks. The cancellation was due to staffing issues which I accept are a problem in the NHS. Nevertheless no contact was made with me until I arrived at the ward at 11am. There were no phone messages, calls or texts and a long journey from the West Coast could have been avoided, or at least a wait in the hospital of 1.5hrs. My surgeon was clearly unhappy with the late cancellation and had done his best to resolve it. It was reassuring to see his concern and his prioritising a re-schedule for 9th November. Unfortunately this was again cancelled. This time the day before so at least I did not make a fruitless journey, but this time the reason for cancellation was not acceptable: the well publicised failure to keep key equipment maintained - this should not have happened and is, I understand the subject of an internal review.

A second cancellation was very disheartening but my surgeon managed to get the operation scheduled five days later and it all went smoothly from there.

In summary my view is that Carlisle is a good hospital, clean, modern and with excellent medical and nursing staff, but even acknowledging the well publicised problems of the NHS there are aspects of the administration that could be improved, especially communication with patients. This is not written as a negative comment but in the spirit of positive criticism. Please keep up the good work at Carlisle.