Priory Hospital Bristol - Bristol

Joseph Whitehouse

Working with Chris is a very insightful experience. I have been very wary of therapists in the past and since working with Chris his manner, responses, communication and understanding have made me put trust in him more and more. He has enabled me delve into events - most of which I have suppressed to see what these events mean to me and start on the process of desensitising these painful memories. He not only is an active listener, but his responses are precise and resonate with how I feel. I found him to be an extremely compassionate individual who is empathetic to my issues. His multi-disciplinary approach allows him to help you with your deepest darkest thoughts and feelings by allowing your own psyche to project itself on to page with Art, or via EMDR etc. Things that are too painful can be expressed without a word being said! With Chris’ help…there are now glimmers of light - each session giving me a bit more power, willing me to want to continue and fight on. The space in which we talk is an airtight safe space, nothing is off topic and nothing shocks him. He is there to assist, enable, protect and support you. He really is a very special gem in the world of therapy and if you get to work with him, then you are extremely lucky indeed!

Declen Gregory

I’m currently a patient in the hospital and it is awful the staff are lazy and ain’t doing work there on the computers for there own benefit as I’ve seen several staff members shopping on the computers instead of doing work the rooms are discussing and don’t get cleaned properly I needed to clean my own bedroom change my own bedding and I’ve even caught bed bugs the staff don’t ask for the doctor when you ask them to and I’ve even had one staff member say why don’t you go punch your bedroom door because I had built up anger and was asking to speak to a nurse

Linda Barker

Awful Hospital. Nasty, intolerant, and lazy staff. Staff told alot of lies. Food not fit for eating. Went without food often due to it not turning up or not being ordered. It's dirty, toilets and showers leaking, water just warm. No interaction between staff and patients. Staff stayed in the office all the time. Lefted worse than a went in wouldn't recommend anyone going they. AVOID the place.

Hannah Williams

Things that happend whilst I was there.
20quid of snacks for movie night that we brought got eaten by staff.
Someone Od'ed came back and never got reviewed or asked if she was OK.
Toilet leaking all over bathroom when flushed
I fixed my own curtains as they broke.
Lost a stone whilst there and no one even noticed.
I felt like the same patients who kicked off got all the help as it was constantly, the quiet ones just get left to it with no help although there probably suffering the most.
Half the activies never happened only when a certain ot came and she was lovely.
Seen alot of bad staff talk to us like their not human.Although there were really amazing staff there aswell who I'd love to thank but they were short staffed and just couldn't help as they were running around after the same people who had no intension of getting better.
I came home other night I feel like the place has made my mental health so much worse.lucky for me I don't want to go back to a place like that again and I will recover with my home treatment team.Someone got my meds one night and I got hers.the place is a joke and it really has affected me mentally.Things really need to change in that place.Im not one to complain ither like I said there were some really good staff there but they were so busy.Been asking for a sick note for quite a few weeks now from them.

Ellie K

Nastiest hospital ever , incompetent staff and rude and spiteful nurses. Staff use forceful restraints with an unnecessary amount of staff. If staff were restraint trained properly they would need half the amount of staff to safely restrain someone. Their go to solution is sedation when simple deescalation tactics could've been used. Sedate patients just for a quiet night. Staff fall asleep on observations leaving patients at risk. Shocking care had better treatment at NHS hospitals.

Kath Vickery

I was seen at Priory Bristol as a private outpatient by another Consultant prior to COVID and this went ok. However when I contacted them earlier this year to request being seen again I was told the Consultant had left. It took two weeks for them to allocate me to a Consultant’s caseload and I was eventually allocated to Dr Lucy Griffin whom I had a private outpatient appointment with on 19th June.

My reasons for asking to be seen again by the Priory were severe anxiety and insomnia. Unfortunately things deteriorated for me between the time I had asked to be seen again and the appointment and I started having suicidal thoughts. I considered not mentioning the thoughts during the appointment and I now wish I hadn’t. However I am registered blind, struggle with my mental health and have previously been in ICU for overdoses (and one required CPR) so I thought I should mention it as I’ve been told previously I should speak out if I start to struggle like this. The Doctor accused me of ‘making threats of suicide’ and said that ‘people who are suicidal go and do it, they don’t talk about it’. I feel like she was almost daring me to go ahead.

The Dr informed me they were making a Personality Disorder diagnosis which I feel is wrong as I’ve had no incidents of self harm or overdosing since April 2023.

I asked the Dr to re-start my medication of Quetiapine, Propranolol, PRN Zopiclone and PRN Lorazepam which had been long term medication but I had stopped it in January when I was feeling better and having difficulties picking up prescriptions. Dr Griffin ranted that ‘we don’t prescribe Lorazepam in outpatients’ and refused to re-start any of the medications apart from PRN Zopiclone which I had to beg for. A prescription was not given to me on the day. On 21st June Helen Allen, Dr Griffin’s secretary, said she would get Dr Griffin to post it out that day. I finally got the prescription when I opened my post on Monday 8th July (it may been there since Friday 5th July - I was unable to check this as I was away for a few days.) it is unacceptable for a prescription to take over 10 days to reach a patient especially when it could have been issued during the appointment. Zopiclone is a controlled drug but the prescription was sent 1st class post not with tracked or recorded delivery.

The Dr was typing throughout the appointment and had clearly not read the referral before I got there instead reading it aloud while I was there.

Prior to the appointment at the Priory I was asked to fill in a number of questionnaires about how I’d been feeling. These took me about 2 hours to fill in due to my visual impairment. I have not received any feedback on these. They weren’t discussed with me at all.

The Dr did write a supporting letter to another organisation for me for which I am grateful but the letter contained several inaccuracies. When I e-mailed the secretary at the Priory about this I was told there was nothing they could do about it. They have not informed me whether they received a response to the supporting letter they sent.

During the appointment the Dr basically said to me she just hires the room at the Priory, doesn’t have anything to do with them and only wants to see the worried well.

At the end of the appointment I was so upset by how I’d been treated I broke down in tears in reception. The receptionist tried to look after me but I won’t be back. The Priory has let me down.

At the end of the day I paid £350 for my appointment, £140 for accommodation in Bristol plus £28 train fare and £40 in taxi fares to be treated really badly.

Nobody from the NHS or Priory has checked how I am since the appointment.

My advice - stay away from Dr Lucy Griffin and Priory Bristol.

PS Sorry when I wrote this review yesterday I forgot to mention that Dr Griffin did not take seriously the previous overdoses I had taken including the one where I’d taken around 160 tablets which required both ICU admission and CPR. She said these overdoses were simply ‘an attempt to communicate’. I can ensure you sadly that’s not the case.

Penelope P

Absolutely appalling.
Had an addiction phone appointment regarding my son with a with a so say addiction specialist (Collin). I found him unfriendly and patronising. He was very quick to remind me they were not a charity and they were a business.
My inquiry was about outpatient care as I mentioned the inpatient care was unaffordable. During the conversation he mentioned money several times when I was not disputing the cost of outpatient care.

The mental health team were very friendly but will not recommend the addiction services.

Was very upset by this and shocked by the service.

Cathy Grant

Please do not choose to go here if you want to get better or feel safe. Leadership and management are beyond incapable and do not take care of patients and staff.

I have already formally raised my concerns about the very serious levels of gross misconduct by some staff members and management, but as expected, the responses to my concerns were completely unsatisfactory. The Priory in Bristol should be fully investigated and closed until the right staff and correct procedures for the safety of patients are put in place.