"Mother-in-law admitted to A&E with breathing difficulties"

My mother-in-law has suffered with Asthma for many years, and has remained symptom free for many of these. After a visit to Portsmouth A&E (whilst on a visit away, and a very fab experience was made then) when she had a severe asthma attack, she had been suffering from shortness of breath and every now and then required hospital treatment.

I had called for an ambulance for her as she was having another attack, the rapid response turned up quickly and we were taken to hospital fairly quickly.

On arrival to the A&E dept at Northampton General Hospital, it took the staff (many who seemed to be sat around at the nurses desk drinking tea and eating biscuits) half an hour to come and check her observations, in the end, being a nurse myself, I did grab the machine and went to do the obs myself. It was only when one of the nurses from the department saw me that she came and did the obs. It then took a further 2 hours for a doctor to see her (again, the department was empty, I did walk around whilst waiting) then a further hour to receive medication to help with her breathing (which had now settled down). Then it took once more a further hour for her to receive her prescription drugs to go home with, when the department was still empty.

In my opinion, they need to improve on their patient care and if they are not busy, quicken the process to improve patient care further. During out time there I found the department was unkempt, dirty and had lots of people walking around, all 'not knowing' a thing about my mother-in-law.