"Equal access to health care"

I was disappointed by the treatment received by myself and mother whilst attending A&E at the Queen Elizabeth after my grandfather had a fall.

My mother is profoundly deaf and has been all her life and my grandfather also has significant hearing loss. This means that during medical appointments, particularly in busy environments like A&E they require myself or another family member to be there to ensure accurate information is being shared by themselves but also that they are fully aware of the information shared by medical teams. 

Over the last few years we have attended A&E with my grandfather and also my late grandmother and have had no issues with care or treatment received. 

This time when the nurse shouted to triage my grandfather, all three of us got up to attend. We were at the opposite end of the waiting room and the nurse repeatedly shouted that only one of us could go in with him. Given there were a lot of people in the waiting room, I did not think it was appropriate for me to be sharing details of their hearing impairments across the waiting room.

The nurse continued to shout that we could only take one other person into the room until we got closer and we explained the situation. However the nurse seemed to remain annoyed at this, pointed to myself to say I could come in and pointed to my mother to stay in the waiting room - they then quickly changed their mind, saying that the room was small and warm and if anyone fainted it wasn't on them. 

When we then entered the room, I cannot find fault with the nurse's treatment of my grandfather and they were very helpful, however their treatment of myself and my mother was disgraceful, with my mother reporting later she felt embarrassed in front of the whole waiting room.

I appreciate that A&E is a stressful environment to work in, however as a fellow health care professional, under no circumstances would I speak to a patient's relatives in the manner we were spoken to. Had the nurse continued to speak the way they did in the consultation room I would have requested that they change their tone, however given their good nature with my grandfather I did not. 

Myself coming in to appointments is no different from an interpreter also joining appointment, and this would have been allowed under Equality and Diversity policies, so I struggle to see why this simple change from the norm to allow equal access to health care is any different.

Neither my grandfather not mother are BSL users and heavily rely on voices they recognise. The waiting room is not communication friendly and we have often found that neither my mother nor grandfather can hear names being shouted, particularly when in an already stressful situation of taking a family member to A&E - this could easily be sorted by a screen sharing the name of the patient being called.

I would like to re-iterate that this nurse then worked well with my grandfather and we found them to be helpful after the initial interaction. I feel is important to highlight communication breakdowns to ensure this does not impact other deaf patients in the future.