Hospital targets and under-performance make the national news and our local hospital, Colchester General, received some bad press recently.

The message sent to our community by, and judgments made on, this news contrast extremely with my experience of Colchester General and I would, therefore, like to share my experience of this excellent hospital.

My wife recently died at Colchester Hospital, aged 35, having been diagnosed there with an acute leukaemia nearly four years prior.

The nature of the disease meant we had a very close relationship with the hospital, both as a frequent outpatient and through numerous in-patient stays across many wards.

The care provided throughout was exceptional.

Staff, consistently across many departments and wards, were fantastic and communication across departments, and with us, was excellent, always allowing for fast and appropriate actions to be taken when necessary.

Over four years, nothing was too much trouble, from consultant to nurse; administrator to laboratory technician.

My wife’s final admission to the hospital was via A&E. She was extremely ill and was attended to immediately.

Getting her stable to move to an appropriate ward did, however, take more than four hours. At that point the hospital broke the national fourhour A&E target.

Clinicians were making the decisions, not managers, and the hospital acted wholly in my wife’s best interests, not their own.

The care she received that day reflected our experience of the hundreds of visits in the four years prior.

To that end, I ask that we take care when drawing conclusions from national coverage of our hospital’s performance. Less than 98 per cent compliance is “failure”, but it’s not always that black and white.

With around 200 people attending Colchester’s A&E each day, there will always be times when clinicians should continue to make decisions in the patient’s best interests.

My wife may have contributed to the hospital’s “under-performance” and yet she received the best possible care.

For acting in my late wife’s best interests and for the excellent care she received over four years, I whole-heartedly thank everyone at Colchester General Hospital.

Steve Walters
Straight Road
East Bergholt