"The GDU 5 Star! A&E however disappointing!"

My mother visited the A&E on Tuesday as she was feeling very unwel, high temp of 41, bad cough, fever, dizzy and she had no appetite and not eaten for days. The A&E simply put her on a drip, once her body temp was acceptable they simply dismissed her to go home and told her to see her GP if she still felt unwel. We were hoping she would get better, but she simply wasn’t getting better. it was a struggle the next few days even in the morning to ring our GP (several attempts calling a busy line at 8am) after getting through we managed to get her an appointment to see her GP on Friday (the wait to see the GP sometimes makes me angry). Upon seeing the GP, they quickly assessed her and said she needs to go to hospital urgently. My poor mum went on her own as I was at work, legs shaking and petrified the GP told her to go to the hospital with a referral sheet (speaking very little English). It made me a bit annoyed at A&E that they could not diagnose her and treat her then. I could understand that they see several patients and be busy, however if they could of identified she had pneumonia at a early stage then she would of received treatment and gotten on the road the recovery faster.

My mother was swiftly referred to GDU as it came to light that she has very severe pneumonia. The nurses and doctors at GDU are absolutely amazing in respecting her dignity, keeping us informed, assisted my mum with whatever she needed. They were totally the people that you can trust. A particular nurse at GDU even came up with the idea of writting some words and asking us to write in our own language the meaning of toilet, thirsty, I’m hot, I’m cold, feeling breathless. My mother was able to communicate and ask for water even without an interpreter because of her input. It gave us the piece of mind leaving the hospital that she was in great care.

GDU Team you have been absolutely amazing, keep up the good work! This unit and the whole team definitely keeps the 5 stars for the hospital.

A&E - as stated above disappointing.