Built on the site of the former Victorian St David's Hospital, which closed in 1990, the all-new…read morehospital opened in March 2002 offering brand new facilities to their mainstay: older people and rehabilitation patients. It is the first new hospital to have opened in Cardiff for 30 years. Today the 100-bed building includes a range of purpose-designed facilities including a 25-place day hospital and four wards dedicated to the care of older people. Patients have been relocated from the Royal Hamadryad and Lansdowne Hospitals. The Day Hospital is open five days per week and provides all-new amenities and furniture. St David's also offers: *Podiatry Services *Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Services *Respite Care *A community-based children's centre for West Cardiff *A primary dental care unit *A range of out-patient services.

My experience is only of the Acute Response Team, based at ST Davids…read more Parking is easy and convenient (remember to log your registration number at reception). Reception staff are very helpful and friendly, the hospital and grounds are very, clean quiet and relaxed. I cannot speak highly enough of the acute response team - caring, efficient, friendly and treat you with respect.

I have had many an opportunity to visit the Heath hospital. Taking an elderly relative to out…read morepatient care and also A&E. And, I don't know whether it is because of the bad press the NHS has received over the years relating to impersonal service, neglect of patients, mal-practise, dare I go on, but every experience I have been part of during the course of an appointment, has been a more than favourable one. Doctors, well, they are always rushed for time, so you forgive their sometimes curt ways, but the staff from nurses to reception are all incredibly polite, warm, kind and helpful. It is like they all have taken a Florence Nightingale pill. I'm into 'personality' in a big way, because I think it is lacking in today's harassed society, but it means everything and is a wonderful placebo. The negative aspects to my time at the Cardiff hospital, and I think being on hospital grounds, there should be a bit of responsibility taken. Is the WHSmiths store. Every time I go in to purchase a paper, the programmed workers behind the counter refer to the WHS sales items that are blatantly stacked on the counter, so much so, that you hardly have room to place your purchases - These sales items, are always sugar coated treats. But, your intelligence and your senses are insulted completely by 'the hussle' to sell these sugar items, chocolate bars, candies and this is all happening in a hospital. I have pointed this irony out to the sales staff, but it has fallen on deaf and stubborn ears every time and I am brushed aside as if I have not even spoken. With diabetes and obesity running at an all time high, the pushing of such items - ESPECIALLY ON HOSPITAL TERRAIN - is not only an insult but terribly insensitive. I guess if they could get away with shoving cigarettes under your nose, they would do that too without another thought to their surroundings.

University Hospital of Wales, or Heath Hospital, as most locals know it, is one of the largest…read morehospitals in Wales. Due to its emphasis upon education, the hospital is full with students in every area, from nursing to radiotherapy. But this does not mean that the standard in lacking, instead it means that there is an air of learning and team playing that might not be as evident elsewhere. This hospital has a reputation for being understaffed, and this is probably true, as it is of most NHS hospitals these days. However, all my experiences have led me to believe that the staff really try as hard as they can, and I want to commend them for that. A little way to go, but nearly awesome.

easy to find if you know cardiff if you don't take a sat nav. Once you've found the main entrance…read moreit gets worse all the depts are spread out over a few streets and look more like derelict buildings

This practice was started in 1922 by Dr. J.D. Williamson who practised single-handed until, keeping…read moreit in the family, he was joined in the 50's by his two sons, Jock and David. The original premises were based at 175 Newport Road and 24 Splott Road. In 1957 Jock opened a branch surgery in his house at Druidstone Road, St. Mellons which operated until retirement in 1997. Out with the old, in with the new partners - and the current line-up of people who might make you feel better includes: The Doctors - Dr. Susan J. Morgan (F), Dr. Charles W. Allanby (M), Dr. Susan E. Trigg (F), Dr. Roger Evans (M), Dr. Joseph Pearson (M), and Dr. Ceri Walby (F). The Nurses - Trish Jones, Cerri Oxenham , Alison Petterson and Pat Jeremy. The nurses are available every day except Wednesday afternoons. They deal with clinical problems and health promotion including overseas travel advice, ear syringing, cervical smears and contraceptive advice. They will also talk to you about any health problems you may have or just give general advice without needing to see a doctor.

Turning a critical eye to an NHS doctor's surgery is as much to do with what hasn't occurred as…read morewhat has. In other words, unless one of the doctors discovered the cure for cancer or, conversely, subjected you to gross medical negligence, more often than not a visit to your GP is a fairly standard, mundane experience. And so it is with Clifton Surgery: the reception staff are friendly, the doctors reassuringly efficient and there's a pharmacy just up the road for all prescription-shaped needs.

Llandough Hospital has an excellent reputation for care, cleanliness and facilities. Considering…read morethat this is an NHS Hospital, that's even more impressive (not that it's good, but that it has a good reputation). From the outside this hospital has a whole lot of charm. It's one long and tall brick building that seems to levitate on the top of a hill overlooking Penarth. Lots of gardens and space and flower beds add to the atmosphere of an old fashioned place. It's respectable in its traditional nature. And, now wait for it, because this is kind of cool, they have the world's first ever high definition MRI. Whoohoo!

As a Grangetown resident Llandough is my local. It is also the place I got my baby scans, came for…read morecheck ups and did an antenatal class. The building itself is old Victorian brick, much smaller and better laid out than the sprawling Heath Hospital. The vibe here is also much more chilled, less traffic, less urgency. I visited the midwife led unit as part of the antenatal class in order to weigh up my options. The unit is like a four start hotel - spacious rooms, double beds with duvets, birthing accessories and birthing pools. This is the place I wanted to give birth. Unfortunately with an old pelvic injury I was advised to go to the Heath hospital where they had surgeons on hand. If there were complications I would have had to wait for an ambulance like everyone else. If you drive here by car no need for coins, rather fantastically, unlike most other hospitals parking is free.

I have just resumed Osteopathic treatment, and not before time! I have managed to sustain a series…read moreof minor injuries over the past six months that I have tried to ignore on the basis that they might go away. They haven't! They've actually got worse! Would you believe it?!? I know that all of my afflictions will respond well to this treatment. Osteopaths train for about five years in total, and practice a non-invasive form of intervention that puts everything back in its rightful place without puncturing the skin, so there's no need for cortisone injections and the trauma of operations. The latter is the course of action that conventional medicine resorts to if the painkillers they prescribe don't mask the symptoms well enough. I reluctantly forked out for some Diclofenac, (also known as Voltarol amongst other things) and the accompanying ulcer-protective drug Lansoprazole, (also know as Misoprostol, Ranitidine or Omeprazole), and proceeded to suffer severe cramping accompanied by vomiting within a matter of days. Did you know that even the non-prescribed anti-inflammatory drug generically known as Ibuprofen, or as the branded Nurofen, is the most common cause of ulcer in the UK, and consequently comes with the advice to discontinue use after three days? I did, hence my reluctance to take a stronger version of it. However, I do on occasion take Ibuprofen as it is unquestionably the best anti-inflammatory that modern medicine has to offer, but I only do so occasionally after a hearty meal. But despite taking the same care with Diclofenac, as well as religiously taking the Lansoprazole, it took less than a week for my body to experience an extreme gut reaction that rendered the rest of me almost delirious. There's an intelligence to prescribing something that reduces swelling. Swollen areas of the body denote trauma, and they also indicate that healing is not taking place. The body only starts healing when it moves out of the protection stage. Diclofenac is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) taken to reduce inflammation, and is therefore the logical choice of GP's prior to resorting to more invasive treatments like the Cortisone injections etc. (Besides which, I have been told by my GP that I will have to wear a brace for six months around my wrist before I can be considered for a referral for steroids. (She has completely neglected to register that I have tennis elbow, and so is not treating me for this, despite the fact I have been diagnosed with this condition by one of her colleagues, and have mentioned it at length on two separate occasions to her personally. As a matter of interest, I have been suffering with Tendonitis in my elbows, wrist and thumbs, with suspected RSI and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome for over six months. I purchased an arm brace well before it was recommended by any of the doctors at my surgery, and when I was finally offered an appointment with the nurse to get a splint, I took time out of my working day only to be told during the consultation that she doesn't perform splints very often, and that she didn't have the correct supplies, besides which, I would have to pay for them if she did). I won't bore you with any more of the details in this protracted tale of unsatisfactory treatment. Instead I'd prefer to tell you the upshot of taking responsibility for my condition... I am prone to overextending myself, and forcing my body to do more than is advisable for someone of my age. If this isn't bad enough, I subject my it to all manner of excessive use without even bothering to warm it up. Needless to say, it eventually objects! Following the advice of my Osteopath I have already learned in one session all of things to avoid, as well as the exercises and self-help treatments I can do to augment the work that she is doing. Wow! She has unblocked drainage systems in my back and elsewhere that will allow the fluids that create the inflammation to drain away from the affected sites, and has realigned the skeletal structure of the root cause of the problem. In my next visit, depending on how well I have responded to treatment thus far, she will edge closer to the most painful areas and remedy these also. I am already experiencing massive drug-free improvements, and am extremely grateful that some of the pain has subsided. Osteopathy is worth every penny! Wellfield Osteopathic Clinic also offer Cranial Osteopathy, which I will be getting at some stage in my treatment also.