The Sick Children's Trust - Acorn House

I stayed at the Acorn house site at Addenbrookes earlier this year as my son was in intensive care. Terrible place. On my first night I was sworn and screamed at randomly by a man from a family on the floor allocated to us. He didnt like me asking my mother for shower gel at 5am, apparently families 'have to sleep'. Extremely taken aback considering aside from PICU all the childrens wards have anytime visiting which means families are going to be in and out through the night and day. I'm not a loud natured person either, he mocked my voice, swore at me and slammed the doors. I reported him at the hospital as their were no sick children trust staff to be found initially. The hospital reported the incident to the charities head office. This didn't sit right with the management based at Acorn house that were allegedly in Acorns office at the time (they wernt). I made two further complaints to head office as the man verbally assaulted me AGAIN and I found cigarette butts strewn around the shared bathroom and as a result of reporting to head office rather then the staff at Acornhouse, the staff at Acorn house would send me private letters under my door, they would come to intensive care looking for me and harass me. Instead of solving the issues I was complaining about I was told 'this isnt a hotel, you need to be happy you have this' my son was in INTENSIVE CARE I was disgusted. No decorum or tact. None. For some reason staff were taking it personal and kept questioning why I was going over their head to head office. I went over their heads because instead of talking to the gentleman who was verbally abusive they moved me which didnt solve anything because he did it again, instead of finding out who was smoking i was told theres no cameras on our floor so theres nothing they can do. Every issue was met with a BUT or lack of wanting to help. This isnt the stress you need when your child Is sick. Eventually my son was moved to pedeatric intensive care to the kids cancer ward, turns out he had cancer. This was a devastating time for us. When he was moved down, immediately staff from Acorn house were on the ward searching for me again. I was shocked, they were like bailiffs for lack of a better term. They interrupted a meeting with consultants to demand getting the keys back, they were told to leave by staff on the ward. It was innaproprotate to the highest degree. They then tracked me down in the corridor to get the keys again, they also told me upon leaving to make the bed up for them. Their explanation for taking the keys back abruptly was Acorn house ONLY provides accomodation to those with children in intensive care so they could no longer give me accomodation, this was a lie. It provides accomodation to those with sick children on the peadtric cancer ward (where my son was moved to), surgical ward, PICU, NICU and teenage cancer ward. The directory to the wards numbers were in the leaflet in the rooms. I knew what they were doing, I had a week of them harassing me and being extremely unprofessional because I dared to challenge their ability to do their job. Ultimately your supposed to make a hard time in families lives, less hard. Your supposed to help families not get spiteful when they complain about things. Part of the job role as indicated on the sick childrens trust site is to provide emotional support, I got none. I got eye rolling and told their a charity, they do not need to do what they do so be grateful. My family had been donating up until that point. You can tell the staff lack interpersonal skills. This isnt a social housing building where you are property manager. The lack of empathy and vindictive behaviour displayed by staff was horrible. I believe all of this was personal for them. My son has been having treatment at addenbrookes for 9 months since then and I havent seen the staff on the ward since. I've stayed at the sanctuary on site at addenbrookes, at my sons charity hospice and experienced nothing short of professionalism and complete care and support. Acorn house is a let down.