"Poor assessment"

I attended with an acute foot injury, I was able to weight bear only just by adjusting how I walk on it. I noticed other patients arrived with crutches already from home, so obviously they were non weight bearing on their injured limb and were sent for an x-ray straight away. If I had crutches maybe I would have been the same. I was brought in by a nurse practitioner who looked at my foot for approximately 2 seconds, didn’t palpate it, didn’t check range of movement, didn’t take time to observe it. She assumed that because I was able to hobble on it that I didn’t need an X-ray to rule out a fracture. It is a well known fact that some people with metatarsal fractures are able to walk on their affected side, and therefore just because I can bear some weight on the unaffected part of the foot, it was assumed that I must not have a bony injury. I did not feel confident in their assessment, nor did I feel confident in the person carrying out basic observations.

I am a musculoskeletal physiotherapist so if I thought it wasn’t potentially fractured then I wouldn’t have made the journey to this unit.

I was assessed afterwards by another practitioner who did assess my foot further than the previous clinician but I did not have an X-ray despite this.

I just hope I don’t have a bony injury that has been missed.