"the treatment of my son by the ..."

What I liked

the treatment of my son by the ambulance team who brought him into A & E

What could be improved

Doctors and Nurses to wash their hands and put on gloves after seeing other patients. It disgusts me that I had to ask 3 doctors and two nurses in you A & E to follow the simple cleaning procedure that all you staff should and must follow, before looking at my son's hand which had been damaged in an RTA he had lost the skin to the bone on 3 fingers on his left hand and his tendons. My son was brought to A&E at 10:30 am on the morning of 15 Oct 09 his had was looked at never cleaned properly and other minor injuries were never even looked at until I asked, he still had glass in a head would that no one bothered with and his right hand was full of ebrasions and myself and my friend (who luckly for me was an ex nurse) cleaned his right hand but called for a nurse to look at he wound on his head, while your A&E doctors took til 3pm in the afternoon to decide that his wounded hand was too much for them to handle and that he needed to go to Salisbury hospital. It then took them another hour and a half to take photos and to put them onto a disc.

Anything else?

If the above was not bad enough, your staff then asked me (a tramatised mother) if I had my car to drive my son to Salisbury!! My son was 17 yrs of age who had been a passenger in a car that had rolled with his left hand out of the passenger window. My friend who was with me her son had been driving, therefore, we both were in shock and should have NOT been asked to drive my son, who was high on Morphin and his first time. What if he had had a allergic reaction to the stuff, he could have died on route to Salisbury. The letter that was sent with my son had his date of birth on the subject line but in the letter they told Salisbury that he was 19!! Obviously, your staff need lessons in maths, this could have also caused complications!! They had kept telling us all day that his hand needed emergency surgery, so why was he not flown by helicopter to Salisbury or at least gone by ambulance, so that he had medical staff and equipment to deal with him had he had any problems? No we drove him, we were not even allowed to bring the car into the ambulance area to but a druged tall teenager into the car, totally out of order. Plus not one of your staff offered or helped us to wheele Matt out of the hospital and into the car! I found the whole experience very distressing and totally incompetent. My son didn't get his operation done that day until 12 midnight, which could have been done much earlier had your staff dealt with the situation and made decisions more timely and gave the correct information to Salisbury hospital as more time was wasted while they confirmed age and everything else again once we arrived there. Luckly for my son they are an amazing team of surgeons at Salisbury that his hand has been reconstructed and he is getting the care that is needed no thanks to your hospital