I recently attended this hospital on a Tuesday evening with my sister who had a accident with a bamboo cane into her eye. Extremely painful for her, we were taken in by ambulance has her eye was bleeding. We arrived around 7.30pm ish at the ambulance entrance to be faced with à corridor jam packed with paramedics, ECA's and other ambulance personnel. There were people on trolleys on wheel chairs and some standing. It was very uncomfortable to be waiting in this area although the paramedics were awesome. My sister was checked I by the ambulance personnel then it was just a matter of waiting until she could be seen. The waiting corridor was becoming even more full with patients and even more ambulance staff. About 2 hours later my sister was then relocated to the main walk in waiting area where we were faced with probably over 100 people most of them looked like they needed treatment. So still 2-3 hours since arriving at southmead hospital my sister still hadn't been seen to and was in great pain. Finally at around 3am the next morning my sister had her first contact with a medical person/ Dr who spent all of 10 minutes with her gave her some more painkillers, eye drops and then sent her on her way recommending a visit to the eye hospital if required. We just cant believe it took near to 8 hours to have any contact with a Dr. I understand the prioritisation of casualties coming in but was just wondering is the holding area going to be improved and made more comfortable and private for people waiting and is the level of staffing on this area also going to change. There seemed to be only 1 nurse on filtering through everyone. The facilities look amazing but just seems the systems of work in place need a bit of attention.
"Waiting times in A & E and holding area for..."
About: Southmead Hospital Southmead Hospital Bristol BS10 5NB
Posted via nhs.uk
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