"An overstretched A&E department"

I was referred to A&E at Stoke Mandeville Hospital for a CTA scan for a suspected Lung blood clot. I arrived with all of my medical notes, and after some discussion was able to skip the triage section and was taken through to the referral section there I and my wife then sat amongst several other patients waiting to see the doctor, in the meantime had blood taken etc by the duty nurses.

There was to my knowledge only one doctor on duty that day who was literally running from place to place all of the time I observed, eventually at around 7.15pm I was seen and assessed and it was suggested that I stay in over night, much to my distress. This doctor did a good job under the pressure, as this department was now closing at 8.00pm I was asked to now wait back in the A & E queue until a bed was made available, this became available at around 2.00 am in the morning when I was taken through to the A&E ward they had a trolley in a side room available. Not much sleep, around maybe 2 hours due to the ambient noise in this environment. A porter came the next morning at around 10.30am to take me to a ward, I explained that I was only here for a scan, we arrived at the ward and the duty nurse called the scanning department whom informed that they were looking for me so another porter was summoned to take me for the CTA scan which lasted for around 10 minutes. Then retuned to the ward to await the results, explained that I had nothing to eat since the previous morning expecting a fast for the scan, they sent for some food which promptly came and was excellent, I was starving hungry, delicious. 

Fully expecting now at around 4.00 pm to have to remain a further night, the doctor came in and explained that everything was fine and I could now go home, phew!!

A long time to just get a simple scan, seemed like a bad use of resources. This I have to say is a result of an overstretched A&E department I believe due to the fact of having to serve such a vast area also due to the closures of other A&E departments in our area.

Finally all of the staff that I encountered during my escapade/visit to Stoke Mandeville were exemplary and professional in every way.