"Poor triage"

My girlfriend got paint in her eye, and because it was causing a burning sensation, NHS Direct/111 told her to go to A&E and to ensure to be seen within an hour. The first thing the receptionist told us was to ignore that, as NHS Direct always over-reacts, and then the triage nurse can't have been that concerned either as the wait ended up at more than three hours. We'd decided that maybe it wasn't that serious after all if it was ok to wait that long with it, and that maybe we were being silly for over-reacting (it was nearly 4am by this point). After asking when she'd be seen, she finally got in to see the doctor, who told her it was extremely serious, that paint can corrode parts of the eye, and implied she should have been seen sooner. But the test machines weren't working, so we had to go back to the next-door eye clinic at 9am, after a couple of hours sleep. The doctor himself was excellent, as was the eye clinic, but it's hardly a great example of the joined-up NHS to be told that advice you've been given by another part of it is worthless when it actually was correct!