"A wife's view"

The staff were very professional and the medics were brilliant. The fact that the A and E is serving such a vast area means that there is considerable pressure on both beds and particularly nursing staff. This does lead to delays in things like pain relief, quite apart from waiting for a bed into the night. It seems as if you have not yet got the infrastructure to cope with the demand. The use of agency staff at night is a problem to them as well as to the patients. Small things are time wasting and irritating: e.g. The drugs cupboard in the patient locker could not be unlocked to begin with! I would say that the professional staff are not well supported by the environment in which they work.