"In the main I found the staff and volunteers were friendly and competent"

I had at least a three hour wait on a Friday afternoon before I even saw anybody. I am not sure how the system works but some people came, were seen and treated relatively quickly, whilst I sat there, in a lot of pain to wait it out.

Fortunately the doctor who did see me was very efficient, she examined my foot, gave me some pain relief, got me a wheelchair so I no longer had to hobble, examined my X-rays and got me plastered up in about 45 minutes.

My first orthopaedic appointment went smoothly, was seen on time, got a new plaster cast, shown how to administer warfarin and a volunteer took the prescription down to the pharmacy. My daughter wheeled me down to get it and went in to pay and they came out to check my details and make sure I had been shown how to administer it.

I was told I needed a scan which I had the next week and then I had a follow up appointment the next week, where again I was seen reasonably close to my appointment time.

Whilst I was being seen I sent my daughter down to the pharmacy to drop off my nearly full sharps bin to get a relacement but she was told I would have to get another from my own doctors surgery. Considering the hospital prescribed the medication I can't understand why they would not give me a container big enough to dispose of the syringes. My doctor is on the other side of town and I couldn't find anyone to pick one up, so I now have a shoe box full of syringes that I still need to safely dispose of.

My next appointment was a few weeks later and quite a busy one, cast coming off, X-rays, and it took a bit of a wait before I saw the consultant.

My last appointment was several weeks further on for some more X-rays, (good news the bones had fixed) and a very long wait to see the consultant even though I had an early appointment which was a bit frustrating.

I appreciate that the department is always extremely busy and I can imagine extremely stressful when there seems a never ending stream of people coming in on a daily basis. In the main I found the staff and volunteers that I encountered were friendly and competent.