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A&e hairmyres

Posted By skyxc33

"A&e hairmyres"

About: University Hospital Hairmyres / Emergency Department

(as a service user),

Attended a&e with acute wheeze and shortness of breath and 9 week cough after seeing my GP in the afternoon. 

My GP had given me an emergency dose of prednisolone and a nebuliser of salbutamol. This did ease my symptoms greatly whilst I was waiting treatment at a&e. Well done to my GP. 

I understand a&e has a long wait. I booked in and the receptionist took my details. I explained I was a GP referral. They did not take my letter from the GP off me. I then after an hour got moved to medical assessment. After a further hour I had my obs, bloods and ecg done, letter from GP was given but seemed to not be looked at. 3 hours passed with no results and no checks, no update to say how long the wait would be. Patients came and gone and I was still waiting. 

Decided to leave as no guarantee of being seen, worrying when you have attended with a wheeze and shortness of breath and the treatment from the GP is wearing off. I have more faith in my GP so will attend them again in the future and obtain my blood results and hoping for treatment. 

All in all not a great experience.  

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Responses

Response from Lise Axford, Chief of Nursing, University Hospital Hairmyres, NHS Lanarkshire 2 months ago
Lise Axford
Chief of Nursing, University Hospital Hairmyres,
NHS Lanarkshire

Submitted on 21/02/2024 at 22:10
Published on Care Opinion at 22:10

picture of Lise Axford

Dear skyxc33

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. I am sorry that you did not have a good experience and that we were unable to provide a medical assessment in a timely manner. Your GP has clearly assessed you and appropriately started treatment that eased your symptoms whilst you were waiting for a medical review.

The medical assessment unit is a designated area for patients that have been directly referred to the surgical and medical receiving teams. Unfortunately this emergency area is experiencing similar long waits to the Emergency department. Due to the volume of people referred for assessment and reduced capacity in terms of assessment space due to patients awaiting admission the time to assessment has increased. My apologies for your wait. Your comments will be shared with the wider team as feedback is important to us so that we can reflect on experiences and make any appropriate changes to process.

I can assure you that leaving you with your GP letter will not have had an impact on your wait, however I will ask the Emergency assessment Unit to review this part of initial nursing triage and review.

I note that you have had your cough for 9 weeks and hope that your GP has requested further investigations if they feel this is appropriate. An out patient x-ray can be requested by your GP if this is required.

Again I offer my apologies that staff could not meet your expectations on this occasion. The emergency assessment units and departments are under immense pressure and staff are working hard to ensure patients are safely assessed. We do need to prioritise patients needs in terms of clinical priority and unfortunately patients are waiting longer than any of us would like.

I hope that your GP is continuing to provide the support and care that you require and that you start to feel better.

Kind regards

Lise

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful

Update posted by skyxc33 (a service user)

Hi Lise

Thank you for your reply, as I said I know how under pressure the NHS is and especially emergency care. I also understand prioritising patients needs. I also understand respiratory issues should be seen in a timely manner, it’s disappointing when targets aren’t met, NICE guidelines aren't followed.

I get I have had a cough for 9 weeks but the main issue was that I was having an acute wheeze, shortness of breath on that day. My GP is thankfully on the ball and followed the protocols for me.

Hopefully it doesn’t happen again. My GP has already submitted for further tests so hopefully it won't be long.

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