"Experience as an Extra Bed patient"

I recently required admission to hospital for some tests and was advised to attend A&E with a letter from my GP. I was seen very quickly by medics on arrival and then waited for a bed in a ward. This took around 12 hours and I have no complaints about this.

The porter arrived and advised I was going to ward 7, on arrival at the ward it became apparent I was going to be put in the middle of the 6-bedded room as the seventh bed. At no point prior to this had I been advised that I was going to be an extra bed patient (I later learned that terminology).

I had zero privacy, no cabinet to keep my belongings, no chair to sit on and only had access to an extension lead when I advised I needed to charge my phone. My bed was also directly under the lighting for the whole ward, which was horrific.

It was very clear to me that I was in the way when OT, Physio, etc came to the ward as they have to manoeuvre around me and had very little space. In my view, it was not safe.

What compounded my negative experience was that it became apparent that even when a bed became available in the ward I was not allowed to move in to it. This scenario happened twice during my admission and it was pretty hard to swallow. Apparently when you are accepted as an extra bed patient then you remain labelled as such until you leave.

I was pretty upset on several occasions throughout my stay due to my situation and the staff in the ward did try to help as they could. They advised to complain to Patient Affairs which I did and this was passed directly back to the ward for response. A nurse came and spoke with me and I have no complaints about the ward staff. They do not make the decisions regarding the policy of extra bed patients.

Whilst I appreciate the pressures for beds I cannot accept that the experience I had is good health care practice. I understand this is a policy that has now been in place for a number of years, yet there has been no change in ward setup to accommodate an extra bed. Would you like to be cared for in the scenario I have described? There wasn’t so much as a curtain added to the ward to provide privacy like each of the other patients were afforded.

I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this experience with the relevant person (not ward staff). I believe there are a number of things which can be put in place to ensure that future patients have a much better experience than I did.