"The Doctor who saw my partner ..."

What I liked

The Doctor who saw my partner in A & E and a few of the nurses were very friendly and informative and tried to help you as quickly as they could.

What could be improved

The waiting area had blood in several places and rubbish everywhere and the attitude of some of the staff to other people was very rude and ignorant. One black gentleman who was speaking quietly and who was obviously anxious was spoken to with no care or respect. A very drunk patient was abusing this man and threatening him with sever racist comments however the man was not offered to be seated in a cubicle and was subject to racist abuse in front of security. This was very sad to see. I feel that the security or even police should have at least attempted to control the abusive man who was threatening a vunerable person. Instead the other patients were just left to deal with the abuse themselves.

Anything else?

Although we were there very late at night the department was very dirty and had rubbish and blood in many places - surely this is something that should at least be monitored no matter what time of day. Staff were wearing gloves to protect themselves - but there was no-one there in the 5 hours we were at a&e to look or ask anyone to clean the blood up. It was clearly just accepted as normal and ignored. Although staff are clearly very busy dealing with patients there is no excuse to cut back on such important areas. Whether this means extra cleaning staff or not is not down to medical staff but should certainly be addressed by management.

We also saw a lady left on her own in a small night gown - waiting for xray - no-one was with her and it was very cold. She looked particularly uncomfortable and cold and it was around 4 in the morning. We saw several people including a very elderly woman just left in a frightened and uncomfortable manner. The elderly lady we saw as we left was being shouted at by the drunk man who was bleeding everywhere and no-one moved her into another place - she would have obviously felt threatened as indeed we did. Understandably the NHS deal with many people with all sorts of problems but this is no excuse to sit by and watch vulnerable people suffer racist and threatening behaviour. That is not the ethos of the NHS.