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Very poor experience.

Posted By K 2024

"Very poor experience."

About: North Devon District Hospital / Accident and emergency

(as a parent/guardian),

We arrived five minutes early for our time slot with 111. Daughter wasn't drinking etc. Strawberry tongue. We got seen 2 hours later with antibiotics. My daughter had been crying for bed since about 12.30am. I was very surprised they made her wait in a waiting room with bright lights and didn't give her a room for her to be watched and seen by doctors etc.

Unfortunately, come more than 2 hours later, we were fed up, nobody was in the waiting room but us. Daughter was crying for bed. I had to complain for us to be seen and that she wasn't given a bed whilst she waited. I had to almost force her to drink to get her home to bed.

Not happy at all with the hospital. They saw a patient with a broken wrist within 30 minutes max, had her fixed up and left. Also they have a padded room right next to the children's ward. Drunken patients were loud and banging on walls. Whilst we were in the waiting room, drunken patients were scary for my little girl.

I very very cross with the hospital. It has been our worst experience yet!

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Responses

Response from Ellie Salfairso, Service Manager for ED, Acute Medicine + Hfop/Frailty (Northern Services), Emergency Department (Northern Services), Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust last month
Ellie Salfairso
Service Manager for ED, Acute Medicine + Hfop/Frailty (Northern Services), Emergency Department (Northern Services),
Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 27/03/2024 at 08:51
Published on Care Opinion at 09:30

Dear K 2024,

Firstly, I want to apologise for the experience you had within our Emergency Department.

There are many routes in which patients can travel before they attend the Emergency Department. For example if you have seen your GP or spoken to 111 before attending and they have referred you to one of the speciality teams you wouldn't necessarily be in a que to see the same team of doctors as other people in the Emergency Department.
There are also many reasons as to why it is clinically appropriate to see patients out of time order for example clinical priority based on the triage assessment by the nursing staff when any patient arrives at the emergency department. I can understand how this could be frustrating and appear as if other patients were being seen sooner than yourself but in actual fact you are waiting to see the most appropriate person for your specific care needs.

Unfortunately care opinion anonymises all patient information so I am unable to look into the specific delays you faced when you attended but I am happy to do this for you. My contact information is e.salfairso@nhs.net, if you would like me to carry out a review please contact me with your Name, Address and date you attended the department.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Ellie

Service Manager - Emergency Department and Acute Medicine

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