"Rules on accompanying patients should be humane and compassionate"

Prevented from accompanying my 16 year old son in the minor injuries dept. left me feeling frustrated and angry.

Department was quiet, not crowded yet complete inflexibility and lack of compassion or recognition of the importance of parent accompanying a young person for both safety, good care and psychological support.

When challenged the excuse given was “we can’t because of Covid” yet Scottish Govt guidance is clear that a child can be accompanied by a parent during “essential” visiting restrictions. But NHS Forth Valley isn’t in this restricted category and still applied restrictions above and beyond the most stringent government guidance.

Under Scottish law a person is considered a minor until 18 and UN and European human rights also up to 18. This was a fundamental breach of human rights and specifically the rights of the child.

When my son came out from the treatment area he was unable to coherently relay the necessary information to me regarding diagnosis and treatment. I then had to ask reception staff to ask the ENP to come and explain the relevant info to me so I could understand and care for my son's injury.

I walked through the empty waiting area to meet the ENP who was very welcoming and apologetic. She went on to give me the required info and explained everything clearly. Unfortunately for her this was duplicate work as she had to spend another 10 mins going through the X-ray explaining the injury and treatment again. This could have all been done in one go had the department been functioning in a safe, compassionate, person-centred way. Instead, inflexible application of arbitrary rules with no grounding in government guidance or infection control evidence led to a very poor experience for me and my son - not to mention inefficiency for the staff.

As I sat watching the lady beside me sobbing after being separated in the same way from her frail elderly mother, I wondered how such irrational, uncompassionate practices have become normalised so quickly? What does it say about us? I also reflected that this same thing will be happening at scale in hospitals up and down the country right now and how much harm and inefficiency it must be causing. Especially when balanced against the extremely rare risk that being accompanied by a loved one spreads infections. I am not aware of any evidence that supports this position, particularly compared to the relatively high risk of cross infection through routine activities of healthcare staff.

I was an awkward grumpy relative who managed to get what was needed in the end, but what about those who aren’t? This wasn’t a life and death situation or even a serious illness, but how many people in far more difficult and life-changing circumstances than mine are being harmed emotionally and physically or separated cruelly and unnecessarily from their loved ones “because of covid”?

Please can we have an approach to this that recognises the balance of risks, is based on evidence, and most of all, is humane and compassionate?