Enter and view: Lewisham Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and Darent Valley Hospital Accident and Emergency Departments

Healthwatch Lewisham, Healthwatch Bromley, Healthwatch Greenwich, Healthwatch Bexley and Healthwatch Kent (Local Healthwatch) gather information on people’s experiences of health and social care services and there are times when it is appropriate for Local Healthwatch to see and hear for themselves how services are being delivered: these visits are called ‘Enter and View’, they are not inspections.

Local Healthwatch visited Lewisham Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and Darent Valley Hospital Accident and Emergency Departments on Friday 7th February 2014.

The key findings highlighted areas in relation to patient feedback, staff feedback and observation. The majority of people who were interviewed in the A&E departments across the three hospitals were positive about their experience. Most said that staff members were polite, respectful, friendly and helpful. All three Enter and View teams were pleased with the staff conduct they observed during their visits, finding members welcoming and engaging. The ambience in the areas visited was generally reported as calming and appropriate. ARs were satisfied with the lighting and cleanliness of these areas, though the team visiting Darent Valley hospital had some concerns about litter and the team visiting Queen Elizabeth Hospital felt the cleanliness standards could be improved. The difficulties each enter and view team encountered was capturing views from patients/ relatives for the entire patient journey (through to the point of discharge) as patients would either be called to the clinical room or triage room whilst the team were in the process of interviewing them. Local Healthwatch will be working with the providers to address areas of concern identified in this report and will use our position as an independent consumer champion for health and social care to exert an effective and responsible influence on services to secure improvements.