"Poor A&E experience Boston Pilgrim Hospital"

Having had a hysterectomy 12 days previous I had heavy vaginal bleeding. I rang the ward I had stayed on after my operation (M2) for advice.

The nurse informed me that I couldn't go back to the ward as there weren't any spaces/beds and would need to go to A&E. Getting to A&E at 1.30 am I found that there was no-one on the reception desk. It took several rings of the bell before a nurse came to the window to say that the receptionist would be back shortly to book me in. Approx. 10 minutes later the receptionist appeared and booked me in.

After a short wait I was asked to go into the triage room with a nurse. The nurse didn't introduce herself to me and proceeded to hook me up to the blood pressure machine and take my temperature. She then opened up a sterile pack for taking blood samples. She never explained what she was going to do and in fact she didn't speak to me much at all apart from asking why I was there.

From the triage room I was taken, with my daughter who was thankfully with me, to a cubicle in the A&E dept. Here we sat until 6 am with no-one asking me if I was ok or anything. My blood pressure was then taken and I was asked if I was ok to walk. I said yes and was then taken by lift up to ward M2 to be examined by the Gynaecology doctor on the ward. Thankfully the bleeding had eased slightly and I was allowed to go home with antibiotics for a possible infection.

Whilst in A&E I used the patient toilet in the department and was disgusted at the state of the toilet. There were paper towels on the floor, a pair of broken sunglasses on the sink and several 'vessels' containing urine in there! One of the urine pots was very large and left on top of the waste paper bin where used paper towels should have been placed.

If any of the A&E staff had actually spoken to me during the 4 and a half hours that I was sat in their department I would have brought it to their attention. Surely in the interest of infection control I would have thought that the toilet should have been regularly checked. Even McDonalds do this on an hourly basis!