"Paediatric A & E"

My son was referred to A&E from our GP this morning. The GP tried to telephone to the A&E Department but no one answered. She gave me a letter and told me to take him straight in. Can I add this is the last thing I wanted to do but she said you can't be too careful when it comes to a child's hip.

When I arrived I felt very sorry for the staff and patients there as the department appeared woefully understaffed and I could see why they hadn't been able to answer the telephone. One of the nurses told me it wasn't usually that busy but a parent waiting with her baby told me she had been in several times recently with her seriously ill baby and was always being fobbed off or kept waiting because there were not enough staff.

Anyway, we were seen by the triage nurse quite quickly but waited a total of 4. 5 hours to see anyone further.

The waiting room was overcrowded, hot and uncomfortable. I could see that it was busy and there were a lot of babies being admitted, so waited 4 hours before politely asking how long it would be before we were seen. When I gave my son's name to a very nice nurse she couldn't find his notes but said she would make sure we were the next to be seen and we were very relieved to be seen after about 20 minutes by a lady (not sure if she was a nurse or doctor). This lady had not been passed the letter from our GP that I had handed to the triage nurse. We tried to explain the problem but the lady we saw said she could not find anything wrong. I would have felt a lot better if she had seen the letter the GP had written so that she could see what the concern was. However she was very kind and patient. Unfortunately my son was so fed up he basically pretended nothing was hurting so we could go home.

So a very frustrating day and £6 spent on car parking. All the staff were doing their best, I can see that, but the building that houses the department is clearly not large enough and needs modernising badly; and there are not enough staff there to cope. I hope the proposed extension happens very soon it is so badly needed.