"Poor"

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience of your attendance to the Emergency Department at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. I am sorry to hear that you felt that the service you received at your recent visit to the Emergency Department was unacceptable in terms of the wait and the priority you were given to be seen. As you will be aware, the Emergency Department is often very busy and so some patients have had longer waits that we would aspire to. Patients are triaged as soon as possible after their arrival, during this assessment their condition is prioritised for review. During triage, patients are also allocated to be seen either by a doctor, or if their condition is less serious or a minor injury, they will be seen by a nurse practitioner. This ensures that the doctors' time is used most effectively for those who need medical review, however does mean that some minor injuries are seen faster as they are waiting to be seen by different staff. I am sorry if this was not explained to you at the time. I hope that this explanation helps you to understand your experience and I thank you for highlighting to us the opportunity of improving our communication to patients around waiting times. However, the situation that you describe of a 10 month old waiting for 2.5 hours while struggling to breathe is something that would not normally be our practice, as clearly this is a very distressing situation for you to be in. As such, we are concerned to hear of this and would like to investigate further. If you agree, please do contact the PALS team with your details so that we can look specifically at what happened for you and your child. I am sorry I cannot provide a more personal reply here. The PALS team can be contacted on (01392) 402093.