"Lack of compassion at St Austell MIU"

I really don’t like to complain about a service, because I work for RCHT and I know what pressures we are all under at the moment, but my visit to St Austell Minor Injury Unit was not a good experience. 

I had an accident a few days before and received excellent care for my head, ankle and back injuries from the ambulance service and Treliske. Unfortunately, I was experiencing more pain, so I called 111 for advice. They gave me the choice to go to Camborne/Redruth MIU or St Austell. I picked St Austell because I have always had a good experience there in the past, so I am disappointed that I have to write this. 

The unit was quiet when I arrived, so I went straight into triage. Not one member of staff introduced themselves to me, and I could not read the name badges due to experiencing double vision after my head injury. The person who triaged me had no bedside manner, no compassion, and was quite frankly abrupt. In fact, this was the attitude of 2 out of the 3 team members I encountered.

I was then sent out into the corridor and left there for 2 hours (even though online wait times were showing 11 minutes!). It seemed very disorganised and other patients were going in and out and leaving before I was seen again. I couldn’t sit or stand without being in excruciating pain, so unfortunately 2 hours felt like forever.

The staff member that triaged me passed me about 5 times in the corridor and not once interacted or reassured me about when I would be seen. I had to go back to the reception crying in pain because I thought I had been forgotten. I find it bizarre that in such a small department there was no communication, compassion or reassurance. Treliske was incredibly busy on the day of my accident, yet I always felt cared for and safe and communication was good.

However, I must say the staff member in charge was very kind and apologetic and told me I was going to be next, even though they announced what I was there for in front of other patients. Confidentiality obviously wasn’t important to them.

I finally went in to see yet another nurse with attitude, and was sent down to X-ray after literally being interrogated. It seems the nurse knew more than the A&E consultant at Treliske, and took my boot away that was given to support my damaged ankle, and sent me walking down to X-ray.

I would have thought the X-ray should have been booked when I was originally triaged, as that is normal protocol, so basically I was triaged twice and I felt like I was wasting their time. I eventually had to get the person who had driven me to the hospital to go and ask for my boot back, so I could get out of the X-ray department and back into the car, because there was no way I was going back to the MIU department. She too was met with attitude from the nurse, and was told: “I told them not to wear that boot!”

I was unable to weight bear and I was following advice from the consultant to use it, so unless they were going to wheel me in a wheelchair to get back and forth from the different departments, then what was I to do? The attitude was appalling.

At that point I’d been there for almost 4 hours and I needed to lie down, so I asked the X-ray receptionist to get the nurse to call me with the results.

I must also add that there was no wiping down of chairs etc in between patients at MIU. There’s really no excuse for this during a pandemic, especially in such a quiet department. (They had time to make coffee though, throughout my stay.)

The X-ray department receptionist was very on the ball and cleaned after every patient and she was very polite and reassuring at all times.