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Care Opinion

Terrible care in out of hours

Posted By starlight1986

"Terrible care in out of hours"

About: Royal Hospital for Sick Children (Yorkhill) / Ear, Nose & Throat Victoria Infirmary / Accident & Emergency

(as a parent/guardian),

My 8 month old daughter had been to Yorkhill Hospital overnight with severe Gastroenteritis and the care we received was beyond excellent! !

In the week that followed she seemed to get slightly better but then took a turn for the worst at the weekend. I phoned NHS 24 on the Sunday and they advised me to go down to the Out of hours at the Victoria Infirmary and a doctor would see her within the hour.

We headed down straight away as we only live 5 minutes away, when we arrived it was absolutely packed full of people waiting and the lady at reception told us to take a seat.

Around 2 hours later (possibly more but cant remember) we were still waiting...my daughter was very hot, being sick and lifeless. I asked the lady at reception if I was next because everyone seemed to be going in front of us and she advised me that there was 13 people to be seen before us and that wasn't including anyone that walked in with what would be deemed a more serious issue.

I was extremely unhappy with this and told her to get me a doctor now, she went and got me a nurse and then the nurse got a doctor out.

The doctor seemed nice enough and said he would take me in now.

As we got into the room we sat down and the doctor looked at my daughter who was lying in my arms and said she looked fine! ! I was utterly shocked by this.

I told the doctor all of the background information on her including her overnight stay in Yorkhill.

The doctor looked in her ears, eyes and throat....took her temperature and her heart rate and told me there was no problems and everything was normal.

I was crying by this point and he said to me that they thought i was not coping as a parent.

At this my husband stood up and said we are going to Yorkhill, the doctor advised he wouldn't give us a referral as there was nothing wrong with her, we told the doctor we didn't care and the doctor said I will give you an envelope with her check-up information in it and you can give that to them. The doctor again said there was no point in us going.

On the piece of paper the doctor actually wrote "parents seem anxious, not coping"

On arrival to Yorkhill (which was also very busy) the nurse took one look at my daughter, took her off me and rushed her into the resus area. Her temp and heart rate were very high...they had to strip her off and give her paracetamol. We were taken to a bed and a senior doctor came in...looked in her throat and straight away said she has severe tonsillitis and is in a lot of pain. From then on the care we received was again excellent. They were shocked the doctor didn't see that my daughter had tonsillitis as apparently it was very visible when looking at her throat.

The care my daughter received at the Victoria was completely unacceptable. Not only to miss an apparently obvious diagnoses, the complete lack of care towards my daughter and the fact that my parenting was questioned in my eyes is unforgivable.

Never will I take my children to the out of hours again as everyone there is completely incompetent and useless i feel! ! !

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Responses

Response from Lorna Fairlie, Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 9 years ago
Lorna Fairlie
Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager,
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

I work in a small team in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde which seeks to involve patients and carers in the work of the NHS. The biggest part of my role is in managing feedback projects across the Board area, one of which is Patient Opinion. It is my job to give our patients and carers the opportunity to give us feedback, and to make sure that this is passed to the right people to help us improve the services we provide.

Submitted on 16/12/2014 at 16:12
Published on Care Opinion at 17:46

Dear starlight1986,

I am so sorry that you had this experience when you brought your daughter to the Out of Hours Service at the Victoria Infirmary. I can only imagine how anxious you would be when being advised to bring your baby to the hospital, particularly as she had already had a recent stay at Yorkhill, and so I am sorry that you did not get the level care and support that we would expect. I have passed on your comments to the Head of this service so that this can be looked into in further detail but I would also appreciate if you could get in touch with me directly to help us do this. My email is lorna.gray@ggc.scot.nhs.uk

I am glad that the experience you had when you arrived at Yorkhill was very different and that your baby's tonsillitis was spotted quickly - I hope that she has fully recovered and is feeling totally better now. I have also sent this story to the manager of A&E at Yorkhill who has passed it on to staff to let them know they difference they have made.

I appreciate you taking the time to give me your very detailed feedback and hope to hear from you soon.

Best Wishes,

Lorna

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