Comments on Kingston Hospital Services

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• Comments on Kingston Hospital Services

Car parking and transport issues

• Patients miss appointments because they can’t park. One Forum member has stopped attending appointments at the neurology clinic as they are unable to park.
• Voluntary organisations could help with transport and drop-off.
• Disabled parking spaces are sometimes used by people who do not have blue badges.
• There should be more disabled spaces outside A&E – currently there is only one.
• There should also be drop-off points outside A&E.
• It is very difficult for disabled people to get to the car parking area from the dental department (lots of doors etc).
• Parking on the hospital site should be for those who really need it.
• Forum members do not agree with the Government’s policy of reducing car parking spaces at hospitals.
• Kingston Hospital should benchmark against other local hospitals – St Georges has a good bank of disabled parking spaces outside every building/clinic.
• It is difficult to get hospital transport back after a visit to the dental department as the transport desk is a long way away from the dental wing. The transport service should collect patients from clinic.

Physical access issues

• The lift by the transport desk in Outpatients is extremely slow – does it need upgrading?

Disabled patients’ needs

• A patient’s condition/disability needs to be put on all notes so that all staff know about it.
• Disabled patients’ specific requirements should be held centrally rather than by individual staff/clinics and updated regularly.
• Disabled patients should have the nature of their disability displayed above their beds if this is what they want, so that all staff are easily aware of their access and communication needs.
• Disabled patients would like a central point of contact for all their difficulties and issues – PALS was suggested by hospital staff, but forum members would prefer to have access to a single named person with a good understanding of disability issues.
• A Forum member commented that the PALS service doesn’t provide feedback – they are sympathetic but not effective e.g. couldn’t change neurologist.
• The hospital’s joint working arrangements with Age Concern were praised as an example of good practice.

Staff attitudes

• Nurses and doctors are generally very good (noted that a new training programme was introduced this year).
• Night staff tend to be abrupt, but ill patients can be more frightened at night and therefore need more TLC.
• It was noted that the hospital has introduced a patient comment card.
• A point was made that job titles by which staff are known to the public should be appropriate – for example, if a member of staff is dealing with complaints, having the word Litigation in their job title gives the wrong message.

Communication issues

• Visually impaired people would like to receive a CD or audio tape prior to admission with all relevant information they need.
• There should be a CD or audio tape available containing information on access, buses, trains etc.