"Terrible "

With the complaint being anonymous and a date unknown it is difficult to be specific however I would like to offer an explanation for clarity.

Firstly I am sorry that this patient feels his experience in our department was so awful. All patients presenting to the emergency department are first streamed by an urgent Care streamer in order to avoid inappropriate attendances to the ED. I am presuming that rather than being triaged twice this patient was initially seen by UCC and streamed back for an ED review, this process does not delay the patients journey as they are still seen by ED according to the time that they walked through the front door.

Secondly, in an emergency department it is essential that patients are seen in order of clinical priority and not in order of attendance. Patients presenting to an emergency department are assessed and prioritised according to the Manchester Triage System. This is a clinical risk and management tool that helps ensure patient safety and enables emergency clinicians to safely manage patient flow when clinical need far exceeds capacity. Patients triaged as a category 1 or 2 are those requiring immediate treatment such as cardiac arrests or patients requiring resuscitation. This patient would have been assessed by a triage nurse and prioritised according to this tool.

Without knowing patient specifics I am unable to explain why this patient needed blood tests however I would agree based on the initial presentation complaint this does seem unusual however he attended with a ? suspected retinal detachment and this had not been confirmed as a diagnosis, without the history I am unable to discern if there were alternative diagnosis's.

Lastly, I would sincerely like to offer my apologies in regards to this complaint and the long wait times experienced. As a department we do everything in our power to reduce waiting times but unfortunately the demands on the service are sometimes higher than expected. We will ensure that this users experience will be shared with staff in order to improve services in the future and possibly prevent unrequired testing.

Kind Regards

Clair Casserly

Staff Nurse