"On the advice of our health visitor ..."

What could be improved

On the advice of our health visitor we took our 12 month old baby down to A&E as she an allergic reaction to some food she had eaten and came out in big red spots (She is lactose intolerant).

I dropped my wife near the entrance and parked the car.

By the time i had got into the hospital (minutes) she had already gone through to the childrens department, there were only two people in the waiting room.

I walked into the department and again, within minutes she was seen and given some allergy medicine. I thought this was fantastic. We where then told to wait for the doctor.

one and a half hours went by and the spots hadmpletley cleared, but still no doctor.

After about another 15 minutes we where getting worried as it was only 15 minutes away from feeding time. I was told we where next.

Another half hour went by and my wife was fretting about our daughters feeding so she approached the desk and was again told we were next.

Another half an hour went by and she had to be fed, so we both approached the desk but the doctor was there looking at our daughters notes.

He then put our notes down and took another one from further down and said he was going to see this patient. We had to tell them we had to go and they just said to come back if we have any concerns over our daughter.

Anything else?

In the hours we were there, only 5 children came through the ward, and most were left waiting a long time. When we left, the waiting room was full. This was not due to how busy they were, but at how nothing was happening behind the doors !!!

A relative of mine had been down the previous week and had complained that there was noone in there, but they still took 5 hours to take a blood sample from his 3 year old son.

Please don't wait until the less busy times as this will not make a difference and the paperwork queue must be like a lottery so i hope you get lucky.