During your hospital stay

Standard visiting hours are 11am - 1.30pm and 4pm - 8pm daily. This allows you to have visitors but also to rest and recover.

Visitors can bring you a small amount of fruit, food or cold drinks. However check with the staff if there are any restrictions on what food you are allowed.

• If you have visitors who can only come at other times, talk to the nurse in charge of the ward.
• If you don’t want to be disturbed by visitors, please let us know.
• All visitors must be considerate of other patients, and respect our staff.
  
• Please ask your visitors not to smoke while they are visiting you in hospital. All our hospital sites are smokefree both inside and outside.
• You may be asked if you want to nominate a key support person.

We pride ourselves on providing good quality, locally produced meals. We get consistently high patient ratings from patients for our hospital food.

Tea and coffee are offered after breakfast and lunch, and at morning tea, afternoon tea and supper time.

• A standard meal will be sent to you until you are able to select your own choices on the menu provided each day.
• If you need assistance at meal times, please ask the ward staff.
• If you need a special diet, please ask your nurse or midwife to contact the clinical dietitian for your ward.

Check out our patient and whānau support services so you know what help you can have while you are here, especially if you are staying for longer than a few days.

What matters to you is important to us. Your feedback helps us improve our services. All our wards and clinics have feedback cards so you can record your comments on the spot and know they will be seen by the nurse in charge of the ward.

You can also submit your feedback or complaint using our online forms:

Please feel free to raise any issues or concerns at the time with any member of your care team. If you are not happy with their response, ask to see the nurse in charge of the ward in the first instance.

If you don’t understand anything about your treatment, please ask.

You have rights as a patient, and those caring for you have responsibilities to you.

We want to protect our patients’ privacy, as well as their health. Please help us.

Ask for permission to take photos

Please don’t take pictures, videos or make audio recordings of our staff unless they say it is okay to do so.

People can only take non-medical photographs of you if you (the patient) or your legal guardian, says they can. 

If our staff take photographs of you for any reason, you will be asked to complete a consent form.

Think before you upload

Families and friends - Do not post photos or information about your friend or loved one’s condition on social media unless they are happy for it to be seen by many people, including the news media. Once images are shared, they cannot be taken back.

If you smoke, please discuss this with our staff as soon as possible. We can provide nicotine replacement therapy during your stay.

All our hospitals and other facilities are smokefree. That includes inside our buildings and on the hospital grounds.

This smokefree policy applies to all visitors, patients and staff.

Our staff will be clearly identified and will introduce themselves. If you are not sure, you can ask any of our staff for their name, their role in your care, or to explain what they are doing. 

We aim to involve you, your family and supporters as much as possible in discussions and decisions about treatment and care. This is an important part of your care plan.

If you are concerned about anything, please ask.

Your hospital care team may include:

• doctors – specialist consultants, registrars and doctors in training
• nurses – registered nurses, enrolled nurses and a charge nurse manager who leads the ward, assisted by associate charge nurse managers
• allied health staff – physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers, psychologists and other specialised health professionals
• healthcare assistants – who will help with a lot of the daily personal cares you need
• kaitiaki – who give support for Māori patients.

When health professionals work as a team on your treatment and care, they are called a multi-disciplinary team (MDT).

Our receptionists, attendants (orderlies), kitchen and cleaning staff are also an important part of our patient services on a ward.

• Your care plan sets out the aims for your treatment and recovery. It is developed by the nursing team with your input.
• Your clinical notes are a record for clinical staff and relate to the details of your treatment, care plan, medications and any alerts like allergies. You may ask to view a copy of your clinical notes, but a senior staff member will check it first and will stay with you while you look at it in case you have any questions. You are not able to change anything in the notes yourself.

Within 24 hours of admission to hospital most patients will have an expected date of discharge. This is the date when you will be due to leave hospital. This date is changed if your condition changes.

It gives you, your family/supporters and our staff an idea of how long you will be in hospital and that helps with your planning and our planning.