"Had to fight to be seen and assessed"

We attended A&E with our very sick mother. We only waited about a half an hour to be seen in triage which was good but when our mum went into triage she got a set of obs done, was not spoken to and was made to feel uncomfortable as they were querying if she was flu positive or not. She said she felt as though she was like a leper because nobody told her anything or made her feel cared for. They isolated her in a room (only for my sister being with her she was totally left unattended for over 1 hour).

One member of staff was not welcoming one bit. We experienced terrible bedside manner, and they said they would be back in 5 mins but never returned. After numerous attempts at getting staff to find out what was happening, a nurse finally said mum would be moving round to an isolated room in majors. We said numerous times that mum needed her bloods done so we could get her on fluids asap if required as she was so dehydrated after V&D and fainting, but by the time she got bloods taken it was nearly 3 hours. Potentially they could have been taken in triage in order to be sent away much earlier to get fluids?

I had an extremely rude member of staff speak to me whilst in the isolated room. When we were waiting in the room I pressed the buzzer for someone to come in so we could ask what was even happening as we had had zero communication. They were so rude to me saying other people had been there longer, and they gave us the worst care. After a while of me looking out the window they passed again and came into us saying has the dr not been round yet? I said no, and they shrugged their shoulders again saying the doctor's very busy.

The nurse who took mum's bloods etc was lovely and the doctor who assessed mummy again was lovely and explained a lot. One of the nursing assistants in A&E was also amazing and couldn’t have done more for our family!

Overall we have had an awful experience and I really hope that this gets fed back to the relevant members of staff. I have never felt so angry to have to fight for mummy to be seen and assessed and I have never had confrontation like it in my life.

As a fellow member of healthcare staff I am fully aware of the terrible staff shortages and work stress environment especially on a busy Saturday night. But that being said, I feel there needs to be a serious intervention with treatment and bedside manner as if we weren’t there to advocate for my mum, god only knows how she would have been left!