Negative Hospital Experience?

When we go to hospital for appointments, procedures or as an inpatient we can sometimes feel scared, vulnerable or anxious (scared and anxious are two different stages of the same emotion!) more often than not I would hope we all are treated professionally, with dignity and respect; there can be one person that ruins it for us as in any situation. But what can you do if you have felt badly done by overall or if that one person has crossed the line?

There are a few different options you can do depending on the severity of the occurrence or your own willingness:

1.  You can go directly to the source and tell the person how you feel and what they did wrong; hopefully in this scenario the staff member would be shocked at their own professionalism and apologise. They often say to hang your problems at the door when you come to work but we all know that sometimes can’t always be done, so hopefully that person just hadn’t realised what they had done and it can be dealt with without further intervention.
2. You can complain to the matron or department manager and they can handle the situation accordingly.
3. There is a service across the United Kingdom }(as far as I am aware) called PALs which is the patient liaison service; their job is to receive compliments and complaints and go through the correct channels to get the situation dealt with. Most wards have leaflet sections where you ca pick one up, or you can ask a member of staff and sometimes your hospital website will have contact details on there too.
4. You can ask to see the associate director of nursing etc depending where you are and what your complaint is about.
5. Or you can take to Twitter and tag your hospital and any directors who maybe on there (you can find directors names on the hospital website) but if you are going to do that PLEASE think about what you say, how you say it and remember there has to be someone or something that was positive. I believe in always trying to find a positive as they may take you more seriously than if you don’t.

Hopefully you only have a minor negative experience however I hope you only have positive experiences; but always let someone know because they won’t be able to change or improve if they don’t have the feedback! It’s like the saying you have got to make mistakes to learn from them.