Any hospital workers in the South who can help answer my question?

[WagathaChristieDoesItAgain]

Hi!

I'm going into my final year of medical school and am being asked to rank which hospital I'd like to do a couple months of placement at shadowing the junior doctors. I'd be staying in the hospital accommodation too.

Trouble is, I don't know anything about the hospitals!

Anyone whose ever worked at any of these hospitals, I'd love to know any of your thoughts (e.g. is it a friendly working environment or is it run-down with a hospital accommodation that has rats- those would be very useful things to know!)

Basingstoke Hospital, Hampshire
East Surrey Hospital, Redhill
Frimley Park Hospital, Camberley
Maidstone Hospital, Kent
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital, Margate
Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, Exeter
Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford
St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey
St Richard's Hospital, Chichester
Torbay Hospital, South Devon
William Harvey Hospital, Ashford, Kent
Yeovil District Hospital, Somerset

Anything you can tell me about any of the hospitals would be useful!

Thank you

We spent 6 months of 2018 living in the hospital accommodation at Canterbury which is the same trust as WHH Ashford and QEQM Margate. We could have chosen to live at Ashford and just chose Canterbury because it's a nice town. A few people told us we'd made a good choice because Ashford's accommodation is awful. But then most is!

DH works across the whole EKUHFT and I go to WHH a lot. It's a pretty nice place, clean, seems to have mostly happy staff.

@DappledThings that's really useful, thank you! Yes, have had some shoddy experiences with hospital accommodation - would love to hear that one of those hospitals has a gleaming brand new accommodation block!!

Hiya. Been at a few of these:

Basingstoke - lovely, friendly, warm hospital. Accom modern and comfortable. Bus ride or short drive into town centre.

Frimley Park - fantastic hospital, military therefore organised, well-run, very high standards, efficient.
Accom - there were two separate areas when I was there- seniors have better and more recently built block, but crazy water heating system means 3 mins of hot water in shower even over winter. Juniors seem to have much older block of flats but superb and everlasting hot showers :0) walking distance to large Waitrose and tiny high street with kebab shop and a couple of chemists. Train station is a small one, therefore on slow line unless you take a bus to Camberley. Driving to camberley is ok, home to Europe’s biggest M&S.

RSCH - very surgically oriented hospital, not the best for training but located in a wonderful town which might be important to you. Accom very old but solidly built, slightly grim. Traffic can be awful, both for driving and staff parking. Buses run to town frequently. Lifestyle wise this is a good place to be.

St Peter’s - little cottage hospital, very cosy, nice place to work, not busy. Accom spacious, comfortable. Most remote location out of all these - long trek to train station, tiny high street with a few restaurants / shops / antique centre.

SRH - busy DGH, good working environment. Accom old but comfortable. City centre comparable to Guildford, therefore would suit someone who does not like too much of the quiet life.

Hope that helps!

big fan of St Richards. Not hospital staff at all, although a close relative is. They work between a few hospitals and St Richards is their preference. Spent my student days in Chichester so my judgement could be clouded by that

Frimley's a really good hospital. Big enough to have a fair amount going on, and the military element is interesting, but small enough to be really friendly. I've been there as a patient a fair few times, and now doing foundation years there. Did all my medical school placements at GSTT and much prefer Frimley. The hospital accommodation is apparently fairly grim (though not heard about rats!) but people don't stay in it long- there are lots of places to rent in the vicinity.

That's such useful info, thank you all!