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Urgent Care - Provided by Hurley Group.

Story from nhs.uk

"Urgent Care - Provided by Hurley Group."

About: Queen Marys Hospital (Sidcup)

I took my 5 year old son to the Urgent Care department on Sunday as he had a suspected broken elbow (later confirmed by x-ray).

I was directed to check in on a computer; which I happily did.

The questions asked what level of pain are you in on a scale 1-10 (we ticked no 8) - as he was in a lot of pain.

After a 2& 1/2 hour wait, I asked how long we would have to wait, and I asked wasn't children seen first, and I was shown a sign saying that everyone is seen in time order, and children are not prioritised!!!

I saw people go in with conjunctivitis, and yet a 5 year old boy ended being left in pain for just under 3 hours in the end without seeing anyone.

I note that the CQC report said that there should be a triage system in place, and clearly there is still not.

This is a like a big doctors surgery and I would recommend that the clinic advertise their waiting times, so people can make decisions to go to A&E if they or their family are in pain.

When leaving one of the receptionists said that she did not agree with their policy not to prioritise children.

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Responses

Response from Queen Marys Hospital 4 years ago
Queen Marys Hospital

Submitted on 22/08/2019 at 11:12
Published on nhs.uk at 12:06

Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback and I am sorry you did not find your visit to the Urgent Care Centre (UCC) a positive one when you visited with your son. I would like to explain how a UCC operates. It is an unscheduled service seeing minor illnesses and minor injuries and being unscheduled it means we do not run on an appointment system but it is a sit and wait service staffed with GP's and Nurse Practitioners much the same as a GP practice. When patients attend and book in on the Ipad via e-consult it takes a history and depending on the answers given prioritises them in order of the urgency they need to be seen in and Emergencies will take precedence over anything else and the rest of the patients will be seen in time order of arrival. Illnesses are seen by GP's which would account for the patient being seen with Conjunctivitis and Injuries are seen by Nurse Practitioners, due to the complexity of some injuries and waiting for xray results the wait for injuries can be longer, we do operate a Triage system but in busy periods injuries are placed straight in the queue to be seen by a Nurse Practitioner. There is an electronic board in the waiting room displaying the approximate waiting time but as we have 3 queues operating at any one time this is only ever approximate. Regarding your suggestion that children should be seen first, this would mean that some patients who may be elderly or vulnerable would never move up the queue. Whilst we are fully staffed at all times and endeavour to keep waiting times to a minimum as I alluded to earlier we are an unscheduled service and have no control over the volume of patients attending at any one time, so in busy periods this does push the waiting time up.

I do hope your son is now recovering.

With Kind Regards

Sue Hopkins

Senior Operations Manager

Bexley Unscheduled Care

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