"Disgrace A&E"

I accidentally sliced a part of my arm skin and I required stitches for a deep open wound. Upon arrival to Barnet A&E centre at 18:00hrs on 26th November I was asked to go to UTC Urgent Treatment Centre where I was told by a nurse who assessed my arm that I will need to see a practitioner nurse or a doctor to stitch the wound up. After approx 3 hour wait I was advised by the nurse who assessed my arm on arrival that there was just one more person in front of me before I was going to be seen next. Approx 10 mins later, the same nurse advised me that the doctor who was running the UTC decided to finish the patient service as he wanted to go home and that she was transferring me back to A&E queue. The wait there to see a doctor as advised by the A&E Senior Nurse via a radio intercom was 8-10 hours long. In the end I have sat in the A&E room on a chair awaiting to be seen for 13hours. It was extremely cold in that room all night as the A&E department automatic front doors were kept being open all night due to people walking in/out of the A&E and there were over 160 other patients waiting to be assessed. Due to having expressed my view on the disgraceful situation of the chaos in that A&E room and the conditions at which the patients were being kept and treated by the members of the A&E team, I felt I was deliberately being pushed back to the end of the queue as a result of me speaking up. There were 4 patients left in the A&E room including me when I was finally seen by a doctor at 7.30am on Sunday 27th November by which time it was over 13hours wait from the time when I arrived to Barnet A&E.The whole stitching up process took approx 20mins. I have requested a discharge report from the doctor who advised me that he would write it up and it would be the first one to complete as he was finishing his shift at 8am. He asked me to wait in the A&E room. I saw him at 8.30am passing by in the A&E waiting room and I reminded him that I was still waiting to receive the discharge report. He told me that he will complete it in 5mins. I approached the nursing station just before 9am as I couldn’t wait in that room any longer and I was advised that the doctor went home and that no discharge report was completed by doctor. By that time I have spent 14 hours at Barnet A&E department.

It is an absolute disgrace the way myself and the other patients have been treated at Barnet A&E department. I think it is an abuse of the patients to keep people waiting for such a prolonged time in a freezing room with small and uncomfortable chairs to sit on for many hours. Some people did not even have the chairs to sit on and they had to stand.

The NHS system is clearly not working well, it is putting a strain on the doctors and nurses who have no empathy, kindness or even some human decency left as they are under too much pressure to provide a conveyor belt type of medical urgent care service with limited resources.