"Was ill advised and given poor help"

Today, when playing football, my partners 13 year old brother was tackled and injured his ankle. I was at work close by and as no one could be contacted, I took him to Andover A&E for help. A first aider at work had huge concerns for his ankle and said to me that it was either badly sprained, or more likely, broken. With that knowledge I drove to Andover hospital. Once there, I asked at the A&E reception for help to which I was greeted rudely, explained the situation and they came to my car to assess him as he could not walk and every movement was agony for him. They took off his football sock and said his ankle was broken and they could x-ray it but there was no point as they wouldn't have the right facilities for him once admitted. I put all my trust in them explaining that I'm only 19, have never had to take anyone to hospital before, especially not to this severity and didn't know what to do, asking them to advise me on what to do next. They told me (after looking at a badly broken ankle) that I should drive him to Winchester Hospital as they would be able to look after him better, so I did. At Winchester, the nurse that saw him was horrified to find out that we came by car and not ambulance as (before they had even examined the foot) they said just how bad the break is and how fragile it was. Andover Hospital should have been more accommodating to this situation, even offering an ambulance as how do I know now that I didn't make the fracture (which ended up being a broken tibia and fibula) worse?! They didn't make me or this boy feel comforted and for being professionals, they weren't very professional. What I would have preferred would be to have them take him in to Andover, x-ray, figure out what was broken, put him in a support cast, then taken us to Winchester, or have them advise that I shouldn't drive as I might not be able to support him. Maybe they didn't get the right impression as to how serious it was as the boy had a very brave face on and given the circumstances was being so strong. However they should have seen through that and dealt with us better than just telling me to drive to Winchester. It wouldn't have taken much. This whole experience was unnecessarily traumatic for both the boy and myself, I don't feel like we were taken seriously by Andover Hospital and I feel their attitude to the general public needs to change. What's the point in having a hospital that can't do anything to help?