Coming to Great Ormond Street Hospital

Watch this video from Lottie, a patient at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), and her mum Kate to find out more information about what it is like to come to GOSH for the first time.

Kate: "People arrive in Great Ormond Street Hospital in lots of different ways. Ours was rather an emergency trip up here. Lottie had been diagnosed at Kingston Hospital the day before with a large brain tumour"

Lottie: "It was the size of a satsuma!"

Kate: "Yes, we walked through the door and you think 'Phew! We're somewhere that's very specialised, it knows what it's doing and we were going to be alright.

"The staff were fantastic from the minute we arrived and explained what was wrong with Lottie, what they envisaged was going to happen over the next 24 to 48 hours, and saying 'you will remember about 10 per cent of this conversation and we don't expect you to remember any more'. And that immediately helped because it took the pressure off that we weren't expected to remember everything. We were aware that if we were staying for any longer than we did or we lived further away, that there was patient accommodation. We were able to sleep in her individual room and they put beds up, didn't they?"

Lottie: "Daddy had to sleep on the window sill but you slept on the campbed."

Kate: "The window sill is actually a bed and actually, by about the second or third night, we were sleeping quite well.

"Phone charger is quite useful. Obviously books and things because there is a lot of sitting around."

Lottie: "Daddy brought earplugs."

Kate: "Daddy brought ear plugs didn't he, and eye masks as well because often when you were sleeping in the room, you had to have the lights on because they needed to do things with Lottie and check her."

Lottie: "In the actual ward we had a fridge. The thing I ate most was probably biscuits and macaroni cheese."

Kate: "Which your Granny had made you hadn't she and we brought in for you to eat? And we had yogurts and milk and things that we kept in there. Obviously tea, coffee and toast is provided for the adults and the children have their food provided.

"Our overall impressions of Great Ormond Street Hospital were 'It is just the most wonderful place'. Believe it or not, it is a very fun place to be. The staff are just so full of life, they are doing everything they can to make it a really good experience. They did a brilliant job didn't they and they will continue to look after you."