"Appalling A&E"

Anything else?

Today my son attended A&E after being advised by a pharmacist who had seen the wound on his foot to do so (his is not local and was walking Offa's Dyke) My son had an arduous journey by bus from Hay on Wye only to be turned away by the triage nurse at A&E because he was not a serious case. This the triage nurse managed to guage without even removing the dressing covering my sons open wound. My son was told walk (bearing in mind each step was making him sick with pain) to a local drop in centre which a/c to the nurse was 10 mins away. This took my son over an hour to hobble to. At the drop in centre he has been diagnosed with a severe infection which has spread from his foot to behind his knee and whch required iodene dressings and a course of flucoxicillin to stem the spread of infection - which quite in all probability has been made worse by the trek from hospital to surgery. The GP who attended to my son informed him that they were exasperated by A&E who apparently are sending all non local patients to them rather than treat them themselves............would it be cynical to interpret this as some form of budgetry/statistical manipulation?? All in all a massive failure in the hospitals duty of care particularly by a triage nurse who couldnt be bothered to even look at the affected area, my son says he was in the unit long enough to remove his boot and to put it straight back on with no assessment of his injury at all.