My 90 year old Father went in to Southmead on Sunday as a day patient for some Spinal block injections. These were done & when he attempted to stand afterwards, whilst still in the department he fell pulling the chair with him. He was not offered an X-Ray & was sent home. Over the next few days he was in more & more pain & on Wednesday evening his leg gave way & he fell again, then again on Thursday morning . He was sent to A&E by ambulance by his excellent GP yesterday with a suspected fractured Femur ( the ambulance crew were absolutely amazing ) . His GP had faxed through information to A & E & spoken to Orthopaedics prior to his arrival so that they would have all the information & he could have an X-Ray before seeing the Orthopaedic team , I understood that it was important to be X-rayed fairly quickly.
On arrival I advised the staff nurse that the GP had sent the info re: an X-Ray , it was only when I spoke to a second staff nurse that they looked int it & things started to move very slowly We had waited 4 hours before he had the X-Ray which showed that the femur was in fact fractured. The majority of staff were excellent, doing their best & very caring but I got the impression that there were not enough of them for a very busy department.
"Accident & Emergency"
About: Southmead Hospital Southmead Hospital Bristol BS10 5NB
Posted via nhs.uk
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