"Lack of drinking water and hot drink facilities"

Fairfield Accident & Emergency, Bury: A complaint

I have a small complaint to make - but a complaint nevertheless and one which I think needs addressing.

There's no two ways about it - A & E is a miserable and largely distressing ordeal for most people. It's inevitably discomforting and even with all the resources in the world thrown at it - it can never be perfect as that is our lot in life.

Nevertheless there are certain things that can be done to help mitigate the experience and make it more palatable.

One of those things is surely to have a modicum of refreshments available - fresh drinking water provided free of charge and ideally a functional vending machine with a choice of hot drinks and maybe a few basic snacks.

Unfortunately this would seem to be too much for Fairfield A & E. Not that we were expecting restaurant and a la carte service of course. Unfortunately not only was there no water cooler to hand, the vending machine was faulty, having retained my £2 coin and refusing to take any more coinage and then barring me from reclaiming my 2 pound.

I tried to remedy this through the receptionist who merely shrugged her shoulders with bored indifference and informing me that the vending machine was often like this and there was nothing they could do. A not my problem guv attitude given an alibi by third party absentee outsourcing.

I'm sorry but that isn't good enough. We really could have done with that drink - 

a) - as an important psychological distraction from someone who was in severe pain and 

b) as a physical comfort and basic refreshment/nourishment. 

We had to endure a couple of hours waiting time before we were seen to - and that is pretty good going - although 2 hours to someone in extreme pain is a very long 2 hours. Of course other attendees will not be as fortunate.

Simply shrugging shoulders and nonchalantly riding this out is not a good thing. It has all the trappings of a backward country with the crudest of public services. 

The NHS may be a national religion but unfortunately due to mismanagement from governments of all hues it is often deeply uneven. Excellent in many regards but A & E is often very grim indeed. Shame on management and governments for failing to address these obvious shortcomings.