"Lovely staff but long wait time"

My daughter was referred to the children's ward for a blood test for jaundice levels following a reading in the community that was above what the midwives flash devices are calibrated for.

I arrived around 3.30pm and waited in the waiting area for around 15 minutes before been taken through to the PAU. The nurse came and did obs around 4pm and we were told a doctor would see us shortly to have a chat & take the bloods/order the bloods to be taken.

It wasn't until about 7.30pm that the nurse came back and took the bloods - we still hadn't seen a doctor at this point. I discussed with the nurse that ideally we'd like to go home and be called with the results rather than waiting. They advised this shouldn't be an issue but to discuss it with the doctor who would be to see us shortly. I tried a couple of times to ask about going & waiting at home but was told to wait for the doctor.

A doctor (Rebecca, who was absolutely lovely) did eventually come and see us about 9.30pm. She advised she'd rather we wait for the results as they wouldn't be long and my daughter did look quite jaundiced at this point. It wasn't until 11pm she was able to come back to us though with the results and confirm the readings were well below the level for phototherapy and we could go home. 

Whilst I appreciate it's a busy department and there's a lot of demand on the doctors & all of the other staff too, an 8 hour trip for a simple blood test is really unacceptable. My daughter was a week old and I was a week post-c-section - an open ward with several sick children about was no place for us to spend a big chunk of the day/evening. Our arrival time hadn't been updated on the white board so presumably nobody realised how long we had been there. The communication about timescales and what was happening was so poor.