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"unacceptable treatment"

About: Northwick Park Hospital / Accident and emergency

My family had to access the A&E and a general ward at this hospital. This is for the benefit of general public and to alert the people in charge of quality assurance for this hospital. On a good note, the doctors in this hospital (A&E) were incredible and we do not wish this review to reflect badly on them and a handful of the excellent nurses who attended to my mother. Our allocated Nurse was very polite and approachable, but clearly understandably busy. So another Nurse was asked to help out in the meantime. This Nurse thought it was appropriate to burst through the curtains unannounced, with no introduction or explanation of what they were doing. They slammed doors, and looked frustrated. When we said hello they did not reply, or even look at us. When we asked what they were about to inject into my mums cannula, they replied in a blunt manner and with a raised voice. In their frustration, they left the used needle on the bed (with cap on) along with another syringe (without needle). We thought they were going to come back and clear it up but they did not. I had to ask whether this needed to be put in the sharps bin or whether it was for later use. When I did this, this nurse did not reply to me, instead they huffed and went back into the room to clear up and then left without a reply to us saying 'thank you'. secondly, my mother had to use the toilet, but she was hooked up to fluids. So we wondered whether it was possible for her to be disconnected, or whether it would be better to use the bed pan. So we pressed the bell and waited for someone to assist. A nurse turned up, chewing gum, and again not acknowledging my mother, and switched the bell off and left. My dad had to walk after them to ask for assistance, but they said over their shoulder 'I am not doing that'. The same nurse also had to take blood from my mums extremely swollen arms. They also thought it was ok to slam doors on the trolley, chew gum loudly and not speak to the patient. Furthermore, this nurse also was attempting to draw blood in the dark. We had to ask whether they wanted to switch the light on. The worst part was when they pulled the tourniquet they pulled it with force that I can only describe as cruel. In addition, this Nurse poked and prodded a needle into her arm randomly breaking her veins and causing severe bruising. Once they removed the needle after being unable to find the vein, they tried to re-insert it into her arm again. I stopped them immediately. They proceeded to tell me that there was nothing wrong with the needle but if I want them to change it they would. This was an unacceptable response. We then told this nurse politely to leave my mother and we will wait for another nurse or doctor to do the blood. They then proceeded to say, 'doctors are not good at it'. There is not enough room to continue describing events in this text box. This is just a small part of what happened.

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