"A&E"

I took my son for an appointment with the ENT department, the doctor who saw him noticed I was limping on my left leg. I had fallen over onto some concrete the previous day, was in some pain but assumed it would heal on its own. They recommended I get it looked at as it was swollen and red. All my other experiences of A&E have not been pleasurable, there is a over riding atmosphere of "you are wasting our time", "should've gone to your GP" etc. I agree, there are many who abuse the system but please do not tar all of us with minor injuries with the same brush. I was reluctant to get my knee seen to in the first place and only visited A&E on the advice of a consultant at SDH!! The first nurse had me in tears within minutes of talking to me. No, I had not taken any painkillers. Therefore according to them I was wasting their time attending casualty in the first place. If the job of the triage nurse is to make patients cry and want to run (or rather limp) away then this person was excellent at their job. There could be many many reasons as to why I had not taken any pain medicine, to be accused of being a martyr and being spoken to like a naughty little girl was totally unacceptable and downright rude. Not one member of staff was approachable, they certainly did not seem to enjoy their jobs. Nobody has put a gun to these professionals heads and made them work in a hospital, it is their choice and clearly many of the staff at A&E Salisbury need to have a career rethink.