Your care team

Many people will be involved in looking after you during your stay. This section will help you work out who’s who and what they do. All our staff have to wear an official Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust identity badge with their photograph and title. If you’re not sure who someone is, or what they do, just ask.

Doctors

You’ll be under the overall care of a senior doctor, called a consultant. Your consultant is in charge of a team of doctors with differing levels of experience. They’ll work together to look after you, and one or more of them will visit you regularly. If you want to speak to your named consultant about your treatment at any time, please just ask.

If you know who your consultant is, you can find out more about them in their profile: Search the A-Z of our consultants here.

Nurses

A team of qualified nurses will look after you, supervised by a senior sister (female) or charge nurse (male). Nurses work in shifts, covering the ward 24 hours a day. Shifts change early in the morning, in early to mid afternoon and in the late evening. As the shifts change, nurses going off duty tell those just starting about each patient on the ward and how they’re doing.

Matrons

Matrons cover several wards. One of their most important jobs is to make sure patient care and treatment are always of the highest possible standard. Please ask to see the matron if you’d like to discuss any aspect of your care.

Students

Medical, nursing and therapy students are often involved in giving care. This will always be supervised by trained staff and we always ask whether you mind students being involved in your care; it helps them learn and benefits their progress, so we would appreciate your agreement to this.

However, if you’d prefer not, please let your nurse or doctor know, and don’t worry, your decision changes nothing about the treatment and care you receive. For the avoidance of doubt, all decisions about your treatment and care are always be made by trained staff, never by students.

Other staff

You’ll probably also meet other staff who do different things, such as; physiotherapists, radiographers, occupational therapists, porters, catering staff, domestic staff and ward clerks.

If you can’t work out who’s who, just ask our staff. These specialist staff wear different uniforms; they’ll be happy to explain who they are and what their role is in your care.

The Mitie Team

The Mitie Team deliver a range of hotel services at all three of our hospitals. These include:

  • Cleaning
  • Portering
  • Security
  • Catering
  • Waste Management
  • Switchboard & Helpdesk
  • Post Room

You can recognise the Mitie team by the uniform they wear, either purple polo shirts or black or white shirts and blouses all bearing the Mitie logo.

The team from Mitie support the Royal Cornwall Hospitals staff so they can focus on the important job of patient care, and the team work hard to deliver the best possible level of service across all of the areas they are responsible for. Their contract began in October 2014 and will run for seven years.

Other uniforms

Some of our nurses wear red ‘do not disturb’ tabards while giving medication to patients. This helps patients by making sure they get the medication they need.
Facilities at our hospitals

Royal Cornwall Hospital, Treliske

St Michaels Hospital, Hayle

West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance
Clinician delivering care to an inpatient

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