"This has turned a very patient person into a..."

What could be improved

General attitude of the staff when dealing with patients (Especially with hospital phobias), giving correct information, consistency in communication between hospital staff, and waiting times.

Anything else?

I took my friend to hospital on 2 days. (I was there as moral support as she has a phobia of hospitals.) The 19th and 20th, after she suffered stomach pains and was referred by her GP. On both occasions different members of staff gave misinformation, left us unattended for over 3 hours as we waited for a bed (on the 19th) and some were rather rude to us both. Although today the reception staff at Ultrasound were very dismissive towards me when I inquired when we would be seen. (We arrived at 1:45pm for a 2pm appointment and it wasn't until 2:30pm that we were seen. In that time 3 people who came in after us were seen first.)

Then when we went to A&E for results (as instructed by a surgeon the day before.) the reception staff were just too laid back (There were a few emergency's. And either the desk was unattended for 5-10 minutes or the person there just strolled casually back and forth while people needed to be seen asap.) and students took us to one side without having a qualified doctor there to supervise what they were doing. Then after they left us we waited to be seen but no one came. I ended up just getting the on duty doctor to give my friend questions, have a look over and give her advice I had already said about to her while we waited in A&E for over an hour.

I find this experience absolutely appalling. They said things that they shouldn't have even said until things had been confirmed, thus making my friend more worried and stressed than necessary. And what added to this is if I wasn't constantly inquiring it is most likely we would have just been waiting a lot longer to be seen or attended to. (The nurse I pestered about the bed admitted they forgot about us. Even though I pestered them about the bed 2 times before.) And one bed would have been wasted for 2 nights.