"A. and E. visit with 2 elderly parents."

Mum suffering from shortness of breath due to mild heart failure. Had been on holiday and forgotten tablets. Phoned 101 and a doctor advised Out of Hours service at DRI. Arrived at 14.20 Seen at approx 14.50. Original doctor very helpful and thorough. Mum taken into Majors at approx 15.15. At 1715 I changed time on Blue badge. At this point Mum, had not been seen by a doctor. Bloods taken some time in next hour. Seen by doctor after 18.00. Sent for X-ray after 18.15. I took her to save time! Not seen again by doctor until after 20.30. Nurses had tried to find him on numerous occasions. Then had to wait for antibiotics. Biggest problem was the fact that we had Dad with us. He is almost completely blind, very deaf, going senile and can get rude and aggressive after a couple of hours waiting. He takes it out on us, not the staff. Eventually the staff were getting ready to change shifts when the doctor turned up again. I got these two 80 plus people home at 21. 10. A total hospital visit of more than 7 hours. I am very unhappy. If we had stayed at home Mum would have improved due to taking her tablets. Probably the antibiotics are unnecessary because Mum has Auto-immune liver disease and so always shows markers for infection in bloods. The antibiotics will just mess up her Warfarin dose. They were eventually offered a sandwich at 20.00 when I commented that they hadn't eaten since 12.30. The nurses were very nice and I do appreciate that there were several emergencies during this time but these were very elderly people who deserved a swifter diagnosis.. There was also a comment about a doctor missing and being short of staff on a very busy day. I also have to comment on the lady in the outer corridor who waited more than 5 hours to be seen for acute Shingles. I passed her on numerous occasions and was sad to see her looking very distressed when told that it seemed she hadn't been signed in! She was then told that there were still 2 people in front of her. I know how painful Shingles can be and can't believe that she was left like this for so long.