"My father's experience"

My Father is in his 90s and had sudden onset frank haematuria. I phoned NHS 24 111 as I really didn't want to take him up to A&E and wait for hours. He is too frail for this. I wanted to phone first to ensure they would be expecting him and possibly be signposted to the correct department. Urology would be perfect in an ideal world!

Having been on the phone for one hour 10 mins to NHS 111 his house phone battery ran out. Furious doesn't cut it, this causes just further immense stress. 

At that point we travelled straight to A&E. Arriving at 13:45 my father was quickly triaged which was a nice surprise. We were then directed into a room and really felt forgotten about.

It was established several hours later that he was in acute retention, he was eventually catheterised much later - there was only one nurse able to perform male catheterisations in the department, we were told this caused the delay. A return of 1800 MLS of frank haematuria was obtained...he should have been catheterised much earlier. This is not the fault of the staff who are all lovely.

He was not seen by a Doctor until 7pm and then transferred to ARU 5 at 21:00. All this time my  father was lying on a trolley. No one changed his position or checked his skin.

He had a rolled up blanket for a pillow. There were no pillows in A&E and this seems totally acceptable to them! Again outrageous.

Coming off the trolley on transfer I noted he had extensive grade one pressure damage around his sacral area. 

Please can staff regularly check patients position and ensure they are getting water.

A&E require to purchase more pillows and I will be bringing one in if we experience this again.