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excellent care but long wait in A&E

Story from nhs.uk

"excellent care but long wait in A&E"

About: Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham

Firstly my great thanks to the doctor who stitched up my face. Everyone personally and follow up at the hospital said they have done an excellent neat job of stitching my facial injury! and I agree! Even while I was still swollen and covered in stitches it was very obvious they did an amazing tidy job. The doctor was patient with me while I asked questions and took a fairly long time (which I was grateful for!) to sew my upper lip back together on Saturday 1st October. This showed me that they were willing to do a very good job however long it took. I was worried that they were a little on the young side to be experienced enough to do a 100% job, but they proved me wrong.

Also many thanks to the consultant and their team for seeing me when I was late (due to traffic) for my follow up. They made me feel welcome and confident. They were all so lovely. As someone who has very often had nothing but negative things to say about the NHS, this was a refreshing change and very much appreciated.

I deliberately came to Birmingham as I knew from previous experience that they have good Maxillofacial surgeons there. (I am not currently living in Birmingham). The consultant reassured me that options are still available in the future should my scar give any cause for concern-which was nice to hear. Although I am fairly confident that this won't be the case.

The only thing I would suggest is that it would have been nice to have been seen by a hospital dental surgeon as follow up also, to get an opinion on my damaged tooth. I don't have much confidence in the last dentist I visited in Coventry and need to change to either another dentist or practice, but will have to attend my old one first for an opinion which I won't really have any faith in!

The waiting time in A&E was at least 4 hours which was very boring on my own and slightly frustrating when I saw the first (assessment) doctor who instantly referred me to "maxfax" which I knew I needed 4 hours earlier! :O Also the triage nurse did not wear gloves when they examined me. (not nice).

Overall though I am thrilled with the fabulous service I received! Thank you.

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Responses

Response from Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham 7 years ago
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham

Submitted on 20/10/2016 at 14:22
Published on nhs.uk on 21/10/2016 at 02:31

Dear Leanne,

Thank you for taking the time to feed back about your experience under the care of the A&E and Maxillofacial teams at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. We are delighted to hear that overall your experience was positive, your kind words have been forwarded to the senior staff for the department you visited so they can share them with their team members. Feedback like this is greatly valued as staff love to hear they have made such a positive difference.

We are sorry however to hear that we did not meet your expectations around being seen by a dentist during your hospital stay. All the Maxillofacial staff that treat our patients are dentally qualified but we do not have any hospital based dentists to deal with routine dental follow up. As we are an acute health care provider we can only provide emergency treatment. For routine follow up patients are required to see their own existing dentist or find a dentist who can take on their dental care.

With regard to your comments regarding the lack of gloves used by the triage nurse, this has been fed back to the Senior Sister responsible for nursing staff within the department who will take the necessary action. We also note your comments regarding the waiting time of four hours; our records show that the day you visited was an exceptionally busy day with a high number of emergency admissions, this would have had an impact on the waiting times of other patients waiting to be seen. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this caused you.

If you would like to discuss these concerns further please make contact via the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) who are here to help and will put you in touch with the relevant senior staff members.

PALS can be contacted by phone 0121 371 4400, by email PALS@uhb.nhs.uk, via the hospital website www.uhb.nhs.uk/pals-form or in person by dropping in between 9am – 5pm (Mon-Fri) to the PALS office located near the Information Desk in the main entrance of the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your experience.

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