Meals for parents/carers should be provided on our paediatric ward at NDDH so that parents/carers do not need to leave their children.
Parents/carers can now purchase meals on the ward in the form or either a microwaved meal or a patient meal from the trolley.
Higher chairs are needed for patients who have mobility and/or back problems in the waiting area in x-ray area A at NDDH.
A different style of chair has been introduced to resolve this issue.
A tea and coffee machine should be provided in the outpatients department at Stratton Community Hospital.
A tea, coffee and snacks machine has been installed.
Better parking facilities should be provided at Torrington Community Hospital.
The parking area has been designated a ‘patient only’ parking area.
A water cooler should be available in the children’s outpatients department at NDDH.
Signage has been put in place to indicate the location of the nearest water cooler.
More entertainment should be provided for older children in the children’s outpatients department at NDDH.
Computer games are now available for teenagers.
Appointment timekeeping in the children’s outpatients department at NDDH could be improved.
Signage has been introduced to indicate if clinics are running late.
Better parking facilities should be provided at Exeter Community Hospital.
The parking area has now been designated a ‘patient only’ parking area with five spaces and four disabled parking spaces.
Waiting times are too long in our A&E department at NDDH.
We have trained more nurse practitioners to treat minor injuries. We have streamed the minors and majors patients to improve patient flow. More doctors are now on duty during busier times.
Pain relief was not quick enough in our A&E department at NDDH.
Training to enable nurses to give certain medications without a prescription and pain is assessed using a pain score during the initial patient assessment.
There were no visible waiting time updates in our A&E department at NDDH.
Regular updates are now displayed on the TV screen in the waiting area and the triage nurse explains the latest position to each patient individually.
More parking facilities should be provided at Bideford Community Hospital.
In September 2015, pay and display parking was introduced to discourage non-hospital related parking and create more spaces for service users.
The toys in the waiting area at the Bideford Minor Injury Unit were unclean and broken.
In November 2015, funding from the Bideford Bridge Trust was secured to purchase new toys suitable for a waiting area. The same Trust also purchased an interactive bubble tube to calm injured/unwell children during treatment.
The waiting room at the Bideford Minor Injury Unit was drab.
In November 2015, we relocated new chairs from the clinical rooms into the waiting areas to provide a more welcoming environment for patients.
Patients were not sufficiently aware of the option available to select either a morning or afternoon appointment with our visiting community nursing teams.
The information in the documentation left with patients has been revised to reference the option available of either a morning or afternoon appointment.
There were not enough chairs of differing varierties, height and width on Budlake Ward, Exeter Community Hospital.
The occupational therapists have undertaken an audit of the ward seating and identified that we require a variety of seating. This is currently being procured.
There were not enough small radios for patients on Budlake Ward, Exeter Community Hospital.
The League of Friends has now purchased a further four small DAB radios for patients to borrow.
Better parking facilities should be provided at Honiton Community Hospital. There are two car parks but other organisations also use them e.g. the DPT site, the local surgery and the pharmacy. Honiton Hospital also has a regional staff training room so the 140 spaces get full up very quickly.
All staff from all the different organisations were asked, if possible, to park off site or if staff are local, bus, cycle or walk to work. To encourage staff to leave their cars at home a step and cycle challenge was organised by management with a prize at the end. All the different organisations are on board working collaboratively. An improvement on the number of available spaces for patients has been noticed and no car park related issues have been raised since.
Reduce the waiting time for medicines on discharge from our acute wards at NDDH.
The pharmacy processes have been reviewed and changed for discharge medications. This is resulting in a reduction in average dispensing turnaround times by 75% on all wards by Winter 2016.
During the routine patient experience survey programme, patients are asked whether or not the side effects of their medication had been explained to them. A high proportion of patients in our eastern community hospitals responded that it had not been.
The new ‘Information about your medicines’ patient leaflet was reviewed and all community hospitals were asked to order them. There is a section in the leaflet entitled ‘understanding your medication’. Although this doesn’t give the patient specific information about their own particular medication, it is hoped that it will help to raise awareness and prompt patients to ask if unsure.
The Exeter Community Rehabilitation Team – ECH (Whipton) received the following patient feedback in Feb-16: ‘Rooms were overcrowded with equipment during assessment. Not very conducive for relaxation!! Not very clean.’
The excess equipment was removed and the gyms are both much improved. An infection control audit was carried out and from this a mandatory recording sheet has been instigated in the gyms for every staff member who uses these rooms to complete after use. This ensures that they have wiped surfaces e.g. plinth etc. appropriately. With less surplus equipment in the gyms, it is also more manageable for the domestic staff to clean the floors.
