"A mixed bag of experiences in paediatric care"

On Monday I called 111 for my daughter and ended up being chaperoned to A&E by First Responders with my daughter, who was rapidly declining in condition due to Gastro.

We were quite rightly kept in a side room and I spent 5 hours there being generally observed, whilst I tried to simultaneously get a urine sample & liquids down her. When I was unsuccessful at both of these tasks I was discharged to keep trying at home, which I think was a poor judgement of the severity of my daughter’s condition, but I did so anyway because I needed to prepare for an inevitable hospital admission and I needed to check on my son & husband who were also very unwell.

When I returned to A&E 4 hours later I was greeted with an even busier A&E and “welcome back, we were warned about you” which made me feel uncomfortable, as it confirmed to me that I had been wrongly discharged and my daughters condition had declined further. 

Fortunately the nurse on duty was a lot more proactive & professional than the day shift staff and immediately set about doing her obs and took some blood. Within 30 minutes of arriving I was told that my daughter was showing signs of moderate-severe dehydration and I was going to be admitted to the children’s ward for IV fluids and observation. It took a further 4 hours to get us transferred from A&E, be seen by a Dr and get an IV line in. In total I spent 18 hours trying to get appropriate treatment for my daughter, which I don’t think is an acceptable length of time for a 2 year old to wait and a poor use of NHS resources.

We then spent 48 hours on the children’s ward (Polkerris) where we went on to have a mixed bag of experiences:

* 1/3 Drs, 2/6 nurses and all the HCAs involved in my daughters care were exceptional.

* There was a lot of confusion over what level of isolation we should be in and 8 hours had passed before everyone was following the same protocol to avoid transmissions to others on the ward. I was given a number of conflicting instructions as to what I could & couldn’t do, but wasn’t always provided with the right equipment to follow the instructions (my own bathroom, access to food & drink so I didn’t have to walk around).

* Polkerris is no longer fit for purpose and both of the rooms we were put in had broken windows, peeling paint, broken TV remotes and smelly plug holes, leaking bathrooms.

* I was given some questionable advice on infant feeding, which goes against RCHT’s policy on supporting breastfeeding (I was told I should stop feeding her because she wouldn’t eat and that it was also contributing to her diarrhoea as it was dairy food). Further training on infant feeding support is definitely required.

* My daughter was treated with sensitivity & compassion by everyone, despite her being very grumpy and resistant to being touched at all.

* Mitie’s food provision for children was really poor. I am really surprised that any children, well or otherwise, would have eaten any of the food. The best on offer was the Tea & Toast made by the nurses.

Thank you to all of the staff who went out of their way to support us at a difficult time, when I had little support.

The first responders care & diligence was exceptional, the night shift nurse on paediatric A&E was very proactive and Polkerris staff mentioned above really did support me & my daughter well (especially when it came to remotely supporting my son & husband at home and emotionally supporting me after 3 days of no sleep).