"My Foot was Broken But No One Told Me"

Three years ago whilst living in Lancaster I hurt my foot. Having had broken bones before, I did not think that it was broken and so did not go to A&E, however after around a week I was still in a lot of pain so made an appointment with my GP.

They told me I should go to hospital for an X-ray that day.

I went in, waited a while, got called in, had my X-ray taken and waited for the members of staff who I assumed where trainee radiologists due to their unprofessional behaviour, to say something, but they didn't. So I asked if that was it and if they could see any thing, they said they couldn't and then just sort of left me to walk out of the X-ray room without telling me to leave or telling me what to do next, never mind opening the door for me to limp out.

I felt quite confused.

Around a week later I had a phonecall from a member of Staff at my GP surgery. They said, we have your results and your foot is fractured. I said okay and hung up.

Again, feeling very confused...

So called back and said I've just been told my foot is fractured, what do I do now? They said well, isn't it wrapped up? I said no, as nobody had mentioned bandaging it etc. The receptionist was very surprised by this so said that I should go to hospital and get some crutches and that they would ring the hosp to let them know I was coming.

Off I limped to hospital, when I got there they weren't expecting me and didn't know who I was. Because of this, understandably, they said they can't give me crutches without viewing my x-ray. So I waited.

Eventually I got called into a room with a member of staff who was looking at my x-ray and said my foot isn't fractured it's quite clearly broken and will need a cast.

I couldn't believe it! I had been walking around for two weeks on a broken foot with zero medical advice.

So I had it plastered up.

I'm worried because I feel like there were many mistakes made through out the process from mis-diagnosis to poor communication, which lead to my foot taking much longer to heal than it would have had I received the correct treatment straight away.

I understand nothing can be done now. I wish I had known about patient opinion at the time so that I could have had an explanation and hopefully something will have changed so that this doesn't happen again.

So I am writing this in the hope that this will be read and will not happen to anyone else in the future.

I would also like to say the ladies who looked after me in A&E seemed as confused as I was but, regardless, were absolutely lovely, very professional and caring and a credit to the NHS and the hospital.