"Leighton Hospital A&E"

Attended A&E department with my mum at Leighton.

GOOD POINTS:

- Paramedics really friendly and great sense of humour which put my mum at ease.

- "Kate" nurse on A&E again really friendly, did not rush things despite the ward being very busy.

- "Adam" the Doctor who saw my mum. Asked lots of questions in one go, but when it was pointed out my mum had memory difficulties he changed the way he communicated accordingly. Was really thorough in his assessment and used a chaperone to adhere to policy when hooking my my mum up to a monitor.

BAD POINTS:

- Dirty cubical on 'majors' where there was blood and dressing wrappers on the floor from previous patients.

- After x-ray mum was hooked back up to the monitor by male nurse with no chaperone (this was not a problem for my mum but could be for others).

- HCA attended to do blood pressure, temp etc. Said it was he first shift on A&E and had only worked 3 shifts previously on a ward. She did not know how to work the blood pressure machine or the ear temperature machine. As my mum had a nursing background she was guiding her on how to do it which shouldn't be the case. The HCA incorrectly filled in the paperwork and half an hour later a nurse had to come back and re-do it. Before putting a HCA on a busy environment like A&E they need adequate training on how to do observations.

- Arrived in A&E at 3: 30 and only got asked if we wanted a drink at 8pm. I asked previous to this if my mum was able to have a drink given her treatment; it took them 45 minutes to tell me whether she could.

- On initially seeing Adam the Doctor half an hour after we arrived we did not see him again throughout his shift. We were not kept well informed as to when results would be back and whether it was likely my mum would need to stay in. We made it clear that my mum had childcare commitments however it was not clear until around 11pm that she would need to stay overnight.

OVERALL:

Staff were really friendly, empathetic, and remained mostly positive despite it being really busy. Just a few improvements needed around cleanliness, training, and keeping patients notified of whats going on.