"Good staff, less good facilities"

I spent just shy of seven hours in the A&E dept recently with my mother who had been taken unwell. 

The majority of the staff were absolutely superb, caring and kind. 

One bad egg sadly caused a continuous issue by calling patients by name and immediately disappearing at a fast pace that didn't accommodate patients' disabilities/mobility struggles and they succeeded in causing some confusion on multiple occasions over where those patients were meant to be going after their names were called.

This member of staff was also extremely abrasive to my mother and upset her with their abrupt attitude. I can attest that my mum was not being especially sensitive, this nurse was pretty rude. They seemed especially judgemental of my mother being on an antidepressant, which I found incredibly odd. 

That aside, I cannot fault the team. They're incredible people through and through. 

Some feedback on the dept itself if I may:

Firstly - I found that music is awful! It is much too loud, it made it hard to hear names being called and it was extremely grating to people (you get chatting after many hours in the same room together). 

I'm not sure whose idea it was to play music over speakers like that but it is not soothing or pleasant at all, especially for those people who were clearly struggling with headaches and sensory issues. 

We were there a very long time and despite living in a post pandemic world and the waiting area becoming filthy, I saw no cleaning of the area happen. This was pretty surprising. 

Finally, some thoughts on the food available - given the length of time people will be likely stuck there for, can I please suggest better food provisions? I will speak for myself here and say that as someone with a few very common but severe allergies (nuts, dairy) there was basically nothing I could safely consume. Everything was also extremely unhealthy and mostly pretty rich, with the only savory item being nuts. 

Even having one of the vending machines offering cups of bovril, a soup and perhaps a sandwich machine would have made the world of difference. 

I know it seems like a petty thing to bring up but it was another thing being discussed by others so I was clearly not alone in this. I'm speaking up on behalf of those people too. 

Again, overall, the hospital is excellent and despite the insane wait times (which we understand, especially given the pressure on Stoke as the only A&E for many miles) everyone did a pretty amazing job. 

Please extend the emergency dept - including the receptionist and Security staff who were also lovely - our respect and thanks.