"A&E experience"

My daughter was taken by ambulance after she reached out to the 111 and her symptoms were so concerning they rang for an ambulance. 

The paramedics couldn’t decide what was wrong except they didn’t know what was causing her symptoms which where extreme muscle spasms in her face hands and stomach. She had a high blood pressure reading as well.

On arrival at A&E the paramedic spoke to the triage nurse who was engaged in conversation with another nurse. 

This was at 8.55. 

The paramedic, who was efficient and caring, said my daughter would be called shortly. 

At this point there was a 0 minutes wait for triage and a hour wait for a doctor. 

10 minutes later the triage nurse and their colleague were still happily chatting about their week. 

This could clearly be seen and heard by everyone in the department 

Now the triage wait time is 10 minutes 

Still the chatting continued for at least another 10 minutes 

Wait time for triage 20 minutes!

Eventually my daughter was seen by the triage nurse, who quite frankly was none caring, and had spent 20 minutes chatting to a colleague about nothing medical. 

My daughter was told to sit back in the waiting area, she wasn’t given a wrist band at this point 

The triage nurse then quickly closed down their station and what appeared to be be their partner, a nurse who had also been chatting with them and the other nurse came to meet them and they left.

The nurse who had been chatting to the triage nurse went into the next door room and 15 minutes later called the next person in the waiting room.

Waiting triage time now 35 minutes!

This nurse saw 2 people then shut their station and left, this was at 10 pm 

Nobody came to open another triage station for 15 minutes. 

Now the waiting time is an hour. 

So far 5 people have been seen but the majority of the time the triage station was left unattended. 

All the lights in the info board were green when we went in with minimal wait times 

Eventually after waiting 2 hours we left not seen by anyone as despite the department not being any busier than when we went in the times to be seen had doubled this is despite the people in the department had reduced. 

My conclusion is the the nurses spent more time chatting about none medical topics and opening and shutting their stations than actually processing patients 

This is an inefficient way of running what is always a busy department although not so on the night we attended. 

This however made little difference to the time we were expected to wait whilst staff discussed their lives. 

I’ve been to this department many times when it’s been overrun with people queuing out of the door, this was not the case this time but it was still very inefficiently run with time wasting and poor care evident.

I feel something needs to be done and staff monitored to make sure they are fulfilling their responsibilities properly