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. 2009 Mar 23;12(2):130–137. doi: 10.1111/j.1369-7625.2008.00522.x

Table Box 1.

 Patients’ complaints about care

Most complaints were in two categories:
Feeling overlooked
Patients described several instances of feeling neglected
One day she came and she said ‘ooh I’ll give you some exercises to do, get on the bed’. So I got on the bed and she said ‘now do this and do that, now I’ll just go and do some paperwork and leave you to do that’. Now whether she forgot me or not I don’t know but I was there a long time (L1)
Typically, they masked their complaints with ‘justifications’
I suppose really the nurses have their own lives to lead and then they often, you think they’re neglecting me you know, I wish they’d come and do something (L1)
I suppose, though really they’ve not got time and there aren’t enough physio’s probably, you know, for this. But er, that’s what I feel. I think your physio is very, very important, proper physio (B5)
Feeling ‘in the dark’
Patients felt uninformed and anxious about several aspects of their surgery and perioperative management
If they’d have told me I’m going onto morphine and you get all kinds of visions and all that, I’d have understood everything then. I wouldn’t have been as naïve as I am now (L3)
The urinary problem [after removal of catheter], sort of felt to myself I wonder if that wasn’t in the blurb somewhere you know. It would have been useful if that was in the write up [pre‐operative information], but it wasn’t (B11)
In Liverpool, some patients were uncertain about length of stay, also
I had no idea how long I was going to stay in for because em, I’ve never had any experience of it and I didn’t know anybody that had an experience of it (L2)