"The single worst experiance in A&E i have ever had"

Thank you for taking the time to comment on your experience for your comments. We are very disappointed to read your comments as your experience in no way reflects the care pathway that we aim to provide to patients admitted to the Emergency Department with severe chest pain. Unfortunately, without knowledge of your individual case, we can only explain the general patient pathway within the Emergency department with reference to the observations that you make. Contact details are provided at the time of your posting if you wish to talk to someone in the Trust specifically about your concerns.

We would wish to reassure you that all patients who attend the Emergency Department have their need for treatment assessed by a qualified nurse on arrival. The ambulance service provides a verbal handover to the nurse and this will be recorded in the departmental records to ensure continuity of care. The nurse assessment includes the recording of clinical observations and an ECG if deemed appropriate and this will determine the clinical priority of the patient. The ECG will be reviewed within ten minutes by a doctor to identify any significant changes that require immediate treatment.

We would like to apologise to you if you experienced a longer than usual waiting time and would wish to reassure you that 98% of all patients attending the RVI Emergency Department are seen and treated within four hours. The Emergency Department has daily attendances of over 250 patients per day, including major trauma from across the region as we are a designated Major Trauma Centre. While you state that there were “no Traumas”, patients in waiting area and treatment rooms would not be aware of trauma or patients requiring resuscitation arriving in the department or indeed of the details of patients that were in the department prior to your own arrival. These patients are managed in our specialised resuscitation area which lies separate from the main Emergency Department.

Without your individual details it is difficult to explain the rationale for refusing more pain relief. This decision may have been made on the grounds that you had received Morphine from the ambulance crew. Rather than refusing to give you the morphine it may have been decided to wait for a period of time before administering an additional dose. Our expectation is that staff would never refuse pain relief when it is clinically required.

It is reassuring to note that you were discharged from the Emergency Department without speciality follow up as your chest pain was deemed non cardiac in nature. I would wish to reassure you that had the ambulance crew thought that your chest pain was cardiac in nature then they would have triaged you direct to the Chest Pain Assessment Unit rather than taking you to the Emergency Department. Apoligies if this was not made clear to you at the time of your attendance.

It is very disappointing to hear that you feel this experience has left you with a mental scar and that staff did not reassure you that your chest pain was non cardiac during your attendance or once the decision to discharge was made. Once it has been decided that a patient can discharged, a nurse will attend and remove any cannula that has been inserted and provide discharge advice/information. It would never be expected that anyone (staff included) remove a cannula themselves. I would wish to sincerely apologise if this was not your experience and staff will be reminded of their duty in this regard.

It is disappointing to note that your perception was that the doctor did not want to be there and assure you that the only reason there would be an increased waiting time would be due to Emergency Department attendances and patients who were assessed as having a greater clinical need than yourself at that time. In response to the doctor returning to see you several times in order to complete the clinical history, whilst doctors try and take a comprehensive history in one sitt