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"Self harm and A&E"

About: Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust / Liaison psychiatry Chorley and South Ribble Hospital

Posted by switchy (as the patient),

I suffer from long term mental health problems and over the past year I have had to attend A&E numerous times due to quite severe self harm.

On the whole the nursing staff at Chorley Hospital have been excellent; very empathetic and have treated me with care and respect - which is a vast improvement from a number of years ago when I was made to feel like a complete waste of time and space every time I ended up in hospital.

I have often been given a quiet room to sit in whilst I wait and staff have been discrete when discussing my injuries when other patients are around.

The doctors who have dealt with my injuries have also been absolutely amazing, and in my opinion much more understanding and respectful than psychiatric doctors who (ironically and supposedly) know much more about mental illness.

More about A&E, mental health, nursing staff, self harm and treatment

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Responses

Response from Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust on 19/07/2010 at 10:52 We are preparing to make a change

Further to your comments on the Patient Opinion site, I am pleased to learn that you consider your experiences in Chorley Hospital A & E Department have been positive and have improved in recent years.

I was sorry to read that you feel the psychiatric doctors were not as understanding and respectful as the medical doctors. This will be brought to the attention of the Consultants who supervise and train these Doctors to ensure that this issue is rectified.

I will also take your comments and views to the Liaison team and we will learn from this experience to improve our service.

Update posted by switchy (the patient) on 23/01/2011 at 00:22

It's now six months later and I still feel that medical doctors and A&E nurses show me much more empathy, respect and understanding than psychiatric doctors and in particular the liaison and crisis services.