"Long wait in A&E"

My Granddaughter who is 16 years old had an accident at school whereby a wooden splinter penetrated down the length of her nail causing much pain. The school requested that we pick her up and take her to hospital, the injury had caused her to be very shaken. My husband and I collected her from school and were advised to take her to the Sheffield Children's Hospital, where My Granddaughter had been an out patient during the previous year. We were booked in by reception answering all the relevant questions, she was then seen by a qualified nurse in triage. We were informed that the waiting time was one and a half hours. the department was full of apparently foreign children running about and playing obviously not in pain or discomfort?

We were informed by the reception staff one and a half hours later that the doctor would not see my Granddaughter because she was 16 years old and that her appointment with her previous illness was an open one and no specific date was identified. My Granddaughter was eventually treated at another medical institution four hours later.

Being a retired health professional surely this is not acceptable. It seemed to me that these children who were being discharged could have been seen by a GP. This need to be highlighted, I feel that this is making a mockery and wasting money in the NHS of the A&E department. The receptionist apologised and I stated that the service was being misused, and informed that it happens 24/7, it has surely highlighted that the system is being abused and nothing done to resolve the situation. Surely if we are expected as a country to accept migrants we should be educating and assisting them in the correct use of our NHS.