"A&E With a 20 month old baby"

Really disappointed with the service given tonight. The person on the desk was fantastic and very understood my issues and reasons for speaking up after being there for 4 hours.

On admission to the A&E department as advised by 111 my daughter was seen by a triage nurse in a reasonable length of time given the fact 111 had advised to get her to A&E. She had a burn to her back that the triage nurse informed me that the doctors will want to check it out and cover it up. So, happy with the decision and advice we waited back in the waiting area for the call to see a doctor. The triage nurse implied that it could be potentially severe due to the colouring and swelling hence a doctor would need to give it a once over, I have no issues with that my daughters health is paramount.

Now, this is where you have let me down, on speaking to the receptionist at the 3rd hour of admission and still not being seen by the doctor, I asked if it would be better to make an appointment to see the GP in the morning as the wait has been too long and if the burn was as serious as implied I would imagine that we would have been dealt with sooner given my daughters age. The receptionist was very sympathetic and found out where about my daughter was in the queue, but couldn't specify a time however recommended that we stay as the doctor will want to see it.

At hour 4, 1am I the morning, I then went back to the same receptionist and said that I will give it 10 more minutes however my daughter needs to be in bed, and clearly the A&E have more urgent things to be taking care of.

We were then called in 5 minutes later to see the same triage nurse whom we saw 4 hours before, on asking a polite question of where is the doctor, they said that I can wait if I want, in a tone that I really do not think is acceptable to anyone and I did not give them the same tone of voice as I appreciate that they clearly had a lot on.

Now the treatment that my daughter was given was a plaster to cover the burn. 4 hours for a plaster that I could have gone to the local pharmacy to purchase myself, and worse still something that the same triage nurse could have administered before.

Generally I think that the service is fantastic, but today you have let me down, and with it my confidence unfortunately, I would like to know why I was spoken to in this tone by the triage nurse as it was the same triage nurse who implied that the burn was bad and would need to be seen by a doctor.

All in all I will be calling up my GP in the morning and getting a second opinion my daughters burn which I'm sure in turn will have the potential to waste valuable time that the doctor could be giving to another patient who needs it. This issue should have been sorted tonight and rectified in a way that was not experienced tonight.

It was clear that there was not enough staff on to cover the department and this showed in the attitude of the triage nurse and also the length of time in the A&E department. Please contact me