One night's stay in hospital, one MRI scan, TWO surveys...

Yesterday afternoon I returned from a 24-hour, unplanned, stay in hospital necessitated by a suspected TIA (mini sroke). Minor symptoms on Sunday afternoon led to admission after a visit to A&E (don't worry, Mr Hunt; we were told to go if I experienced such symptoms after a planned visit to clinic the previous Saturday, so I wasn't wasting resources). Before I could be discharged, after being seen by my consultant who arranged for the MRI and discussed the outcome with me, I was interviewed in person for one survey and given another to be completed on a pre-paid postcard. The face-to-face interview involved completion of the usual 'on a scale of 1 to 5' questions, which included such shoe-ins as 'how would you rate the food' and 'what do you think of the decor' - neither of which are going to be too high on the list of improvements, given the current state of NHS funding. Most difficult to reduce to a 1 to 5 response was the question about quality of sleep. It was very poor, but this was because I'd been allocated a bed - at short notice on a Sunday afternoon - in a high dependency stroke unit, where my three fellow 'roomies' needed round the clock care from a dedicated, hard-working team of medical professionals. If lights turned on and off during the night and medics conferring at nearby bedsides disturbed me, lack of sleep was a small inconvenience to me alongside the care the other patients obviously needed. On a scale of 1-5, sleep quality was accorded a '2', but I made sure the scribe recorded my reasons at length. Higher up on the facile question scale was the single question on the pre-paid card: how likely would I be to recommend this hospital to a friend or relative in need of similar care? I've decided to save the NHS the postage on this, as it smacks too much of vapid customer satsfaction league-tables. But the answer is: should you find yourself suffering the symptoms of a stroke or mini-stroke in Halifax or its environs, the staff on Ward 6 at Calderdale Royal Hospital do their utmost to treat and reassure, given the constraints currently facing the NHS, and if you have a friend or loved-one being treated on that ward, they are - on the evidence of my experience - treated with a high-level of care and respect. Sorry there's no appropriate column on the survey for that testimonial, but dedicated, well-trained professional healthcare can't be reduced to a simple box-ticking exercise. So if your'e looking to save NHS resources, the questionnaire culture should be the first to go.