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"Lacking professionals skills in working with..."

About: Queen Marys Hospital (Sidcup)

We attended today the Urgent Care Centre with our son (3 years old). When we arrived we were asked to go to the Paediatric Services. We waited for over 45 minutes, the Centre was not too busy (two other patients) for more than 15 minutes we were on our own in the waiting area. When I went to ask why we were not called in yet, i noticed that the 2 doctors were chatting and drinking tea at the Reception desk. Not that I have anything against this but this is an Urgent Care Centre and I was waiting with my son who was not well at all. I was told that i was the next one to be called. We waited another 5 minutes, then the nurse called us in. The nurse made eye contact with us well before they called us (as i saw the nurse when they went into the toilet), this was 25 minutes before or so but the nurse did not call us then. I was already very disappointed with their services. When we spoke with the nurse they did not engage at all with my son, the nurse only asked us questions. Apart from introducing themselves, I could say that the nurse was lacking from professionals skills in engaging with parents and first of all with children. Thenurse did not make any attempts to ask him any questions, did not ask for his name or to try to explain what they were going to do. i had to ask the nurse what they were doing. When the nurse finished they said the doctor would call us next, no feed-back or encouragement for the child to understand that everything went well. By this stage i was getting even more unhappy about the way they were treating us. We waited a few more minutes, the doctor called us. The doctor introduced themselves and asked us to describe what was wrong with our son. We found the doctor very arrogant, distant and unprofessional. Similar to the nurse, the doctor did not try to engage our son in the process. Their approach was far from child-focused. The doctor did not interact, say anything to our son, or at least explain to him what they were going to do. The doctor checked him, but i would say very briefly only and quickly concluded what he had. This check was done in less than 3 min (the doctor did not check his stomach which I found odd given that I had told them that my our son was sick just before we left home). The doctor did not try to encourage or reassure our son while they briefly checked him and I found this very unprofessional and clearly lacking in any understanding of how important it is for children to tell them what you are doing and give them feed-back on their behaviour. The doctor prescribed him some medicine but did not attempt to explain to us what medicine was and how to administrate or for how long is for. We strongly feel that we were not treated with respect and the whole experience was not positive for us and our son. We were expecting far more from a Paediatric Service. The only positive aspect about this service is that the waiting area is child friendly.

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