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A&E experience - Good turned Bad

Posted By AdamT22

"A&E experience - Good turned Bad"

About: Borders General Hospital / Accident & Emergency Scottish Ambulance Service / Emergency Ambulance

(as a service user),

I unfortunately severely damaged my back whilst working in the Borders area about 1.5 hours from my house. I was helped by 2 excellent paramedics who administered morphine and helped me get to A&E.

Once there I was treated to more pain relief and checked over by two lovely nurses.  The a&e doctor was wonderful, and encouraged me to try and move and tried to relieve the pain with more morphine however it did not help the pain at all.

After several hours of agony, I was told I was being admitted and go for scans. Another hour passed and another doctor came in. Unfortunately they were in no mood to check on my progress. The doctor barged in and without looking me in the eye or asking me anything just said, I have good news and bad news. The doctor said the good news was that we don’t think there is anything broken, and that the bad news was that I was not important enough for a bed and please leave as soon as you can. I was gobsmacked. I explained I had no transport and was unable to sit, my friend had a van and the doctors advice was to take some pillows and try and get comfortable in the back of the van for the hour and a half journey in the back of a van!

When I asked for the doctor's name, they waited around 10 minutes and came back with a piece of paper with their name, and at the bottom was a smiley face emoji. Not once did they look me in the eye and I can only presume the smiley face was an indication that they did not care in the slightest at the thought of being reported nor the fact I had an agonising trip ahead of me.

I was issued with paracetamol after the previous doctor told me I was already given enough pain relief to knock out a horse and the pain had still not subsided. I had heard stories of terrible and unprofessional NHS staff before but this was the first time I had ever encountered it.

I am so grateful to the paramedics and staff who looked after me for the hours I was allowed to stay in. I am also grateful that the other doctor was not around longer than they were. I felt their attitude to the a&e doctor I saw first was disgusting, who wanted to monitor me and give me scans to ensure nothing was broken.

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Responses

Response from Lesley Kay, Patient Experience Team Leader, Corporate Affairs, Scottish Ambulance Service nearly 2 years ago
Lesley Kay
Patient Experience Team Leader, Corporate Affairs,
Scottish Ambulance Service

Submitted on 08/06/2022 at 15:07
Published on Care Opinion at 15:07

Dear AdamT22

Thank you for taking the time to post your feedback.

I am sorry to learn about you severely damaging your back, this sounds so painful, and no doubt very distressing too. I am delighted to read that you describe our crew as excellent and also to hear you were grateful for their care. Your kind words will mean a lot to our staff and I would be delighted to pass on your feedback for them both. If you would like me to do this, please may I ask you contact us at sas.feedback@nhs.scot with your name, address and date of when we attended to you. Please may we also ask you make reference to your Care Opinion username which will allow us to link to this story.

I am sorry to read about the issues you mention relating to when you were in hospital. I am sure someone from NHS Borders will be in touch with you soon in realtion to this.

I hope you are now on the mend and feeling much better

Thanks again

Kind Regards

Lesley

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Response from Lynn McCallum, Medical Director, NHS Borders nearly 2 years ago
Lynn McCallum
Medical Director,
NHS Borders

Along with the Director of Nursing, we are collectively responsible for the clinical care delivered within NHS Borders.

Submitted on 16/06/2022 at 16:31
Published on Care Opinion at 16:31

picture of Lynn McCallum

Dear AdamT22,

Thank you for taking the time to tell us about your experience via Care Opinion. I am very sorry that the initially good experience was negated so badly by the subsequent care from one of our doctors.

Although these stories are anonymised, I believe that you may also have contacted our Patient Experience Team to tell us of your experience. When speaking to the ED team, I am advised that they have identified a lot of learning from your experience and that this will be sent imminently to you in our complaints response.

I am very sorry that you had this experience under our care. At NHS Borders, we endeavour to treat our patients as we would expect our own family members to be treated and it is evident from your experience that we have not delivered against this expectation. I very much hope that your back is now better and that you are up and moving again.

We will be in contact shortly with more information about the learning mentioned above.

Best wishes,

Lynn

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