"Frustrating 4hour visit to A&E without injury..."

Anything else?

Having phoned NHS direct 111 number, we were referred to Grantham as we were assured it would be able to remove a large blackthorn my daughter had in her arm. We were told we had a computer referral and Grantham would have us on their system. On arrival we were told this is not true, they are not linked into this system. In 4 hours we saw 1 nurse, had an X-ray, saw one doctor twice and another one once. Finally we were told just within the 4 hour limit that Grantham did not have the expertise over the weekend to give a local anaesthetic to an U16, so we needed to go somewhere else. This could have been established much earlier in the process, either on the phone with the first meeting with staff. The only useful outcome from 5 hous trip to Grantham was a pack of powerful antibiotics to mimise the risk of blood poisoning from the blackthorn still in situ. What a waste of time and resources: both nhs direct and Grantham get to tick their boxes, yet the patient is not treated successfully. Thankfully our fantastic rural GP gave a local, a tetanus and removed the 2.5cm blackthorn in 15 mins this morning.