"Not pleased with wait at Russell's Hall Hospital A and E"

My mother is in her 80s and has numerous medical problems, the most serious being that she is now in the advanced stages of vascular dementia.

Recently, she experienced unexplained chest pain, commented that she could not breath, started coughing and heaving and stated that she was going to be sick. The episode was short lived and she only vomited a little saliva. Nevertheless, I rang 111 to seek advice. This resulted in the attendance of the emergency services, who examined my mother and took an ECG. The ECG was not showing anything abnormal but their advice was that she go to hospital. I requested that she go to New Cross, as we had previously had bad experiences at Russell's Hall. Ambulance Control denied my request so I stated that in that case we would decline their offer of hospital attendance, as everything had settled down and my mother was comfortable. The ambulance crew were insistent that my mother should go to hospital as a normal ECG only showed the 'here and now' situation and that only blood tests would indicate if my mother had suffered a heart attack or similar. So, reluctantly, I agreed.

We arrived at the hospital shortly after 8.30 pm. My mother was given an ECG at 8.45 pm and another at 9.20 pm. The nurse informed us that the second ECG was normal and that she was very sorry but we would have to go to the general waiting area to wait to be seen by a doctor. No bloods had been taken from my mother at this point. I asked what the waiting time was. I was told that the next patient to be seen had already been waiting for 2 hours and 40 minutes.

The waiting area was packed and very noisy with few if any seats available. I informed the nurse that my mother was in the advanced stages of dementia and was incontinent at times and that a 3 hour wait in the waiting area, so far as I was concerned, was not an option. To cut a longer story short, I discharged my mother and took her home.

I had been told upon my arrival at the hospital that no cubicles were currently available in A and E because there was a backlog of patients waiting to go to wards that did not have beds available. This meant that my mother was initially taken to another are to have her first ECG and then moved into the A and E area to wait for her second ECG to be done.

I do not understand why no bloods had been taken from my mother to determine if she had suffered a heart related attack. Was she going to have to wait 3 hours or more to be seen by a Doctor only to be told that bloods would need to be taken followed by another long wait for the test results and another wait the seen by the Doctor again?

Needless to say, that if my mother suffers another chest pain, I shall put her in the car and take her to New Cross myself. Only, and only if she is in a life threatening state, will she ever go to Russell's Hall Hospital again. Should that happen, I shall have her transferred to another hospital as soon as I can, even if I have to move her to a private hospital.

I feel that Russell's Hall Hospital is a disgrace.