"Uncaring Nurse (My 11 year old son) left crying and begging the nurse to stop"

My 11 year old son fell at school and cut his knee. Deep enough for the school to call me and I collected him and went to my local treatment where a nurse partly cleaned it out with some saline water and advised it looked like it needed stitches and grit was present. I went to Minor Injuries at Stirling. The Receptionist was lovely and our wait to see a nurse was only about 30 minutes.

The nurse that saw my son, in my opinion, didn't engage very well with a child and although explained to me that she would rather not give anaesthetic around the wound as this would be far worse than her cleaning it out with cotton buds. As she started to clean it out my son was screaming and begging for her to stop, Eventually after I thought my son was going to pass out or throw up I asked her to stop and administer an anaesthetic before continuing. At no time did she try and put my son at ease.

She then gave him two injections and to my surprise without first numbing the area where the needle would go (my younger son only by 2 years had been given a numbing gel patch on his arm before any injections were given and did not feel a thing and experienced no distress at all in Falkirk A&E last year).

My son was now sobbing as the needles went in and in all fairness felt the nurse digging around with tweezers trying to get a large stone out from the corner of the cut.

My son felt the stitches and pretty much cried throughout the whole experience. I do not feel that this particular nurse had the relevant skills to deal with an 11 year old child that was very upset and crying uncontrollably. I walked out feeling that my son had an awful experience and his knee may be scarred for life but also his views on hospitals is also tainted.

I feel strongly enough to follow this up with a formal complaint to the NHS.