"I felt this was not the appropriate advice"

My daughter was recently assaulted. I knew how busy the hospital is so contacted NHS 24 to enquire about her being seen as I was worried she may have had a broken bone. I assumed they would arrange an appointment for her at Minor Injuries.

I waited over 40 minutes to speak to a call handler who then passed me to a nurse. I had to wait a further 20 minutes to actually speak to the nurse, to be told someone from FVRH would phone back.

2 hours later a Clinical Nurse adviser called me say they needed to speak to my daughter directly and advised theywould call back in 10 minutes. 3 1/2 hours later they still hadn't called back. After a further 15 minute wait to get through to NHS 24, we were told the advice was to take her to A&E, although they warned us that there was an 8-10 hour wait so we should only go if we really needed to. The whole point of phoning NHS 24 was to avoid taking up valuable A&E time and to avoid sitting there for 10 hours with my traumatised daughter. 

As a nurse myself, I explained to NHS 24 that I had assessed my daughter and felt she needed an x-ray so could they maybe arrange an appointment at MIU as I knew you were not supposed to attend without an appointment. I was then given the same advice about attending A&E where we would face an 8-10 hour wait, so we should only go if it was urgent.

As I had explained, I didn't feel it was urgent enough to warrant an A&E admission, however I did feel she needed an x-ray, I felt this was not the appropriate advice.

With FVRH in the crisis, precarious situation it is in, I feel there could have been a better option than just telling us to go to A&E. What is the point in triaging through NHS 24 if their advice is just to pass it to the already over capacity A&E and encourage people to sit there for in excess of 10 hours?

Surely a better answer would have been to arrange a MIU appointment or even a rapid access x-ray which could then have been followed up at FVRH if appropriate?