"Total shambles, riddled with disinterest"

I recognise that accident and emergency departments can be under severe pressure at times. The problems at Truro seem to be exacerbated by an extremely poor managerial control system. The patient is left for hours on end without even the basic standards of care. Staff move hither and thither but not one takes the time and effort to explain the system and apparent endless delays. Simple things like wound cleaning and dressing are left undone. The patient has no single point of contact and there is no identicationof the staff member responsible for the patients care. The whole staff attitude seems to be one of "it's not my problem and why should I care." One of the agency nurses who was eventually directed to clean my wife's wounds arrived with an inadequate sized bowl of disinfectant found my wife could not fit her injured arm in the bowl so they just appeared to give up and walk away never to return. This is not a problem of funding or shortage of staff, it is a problem of lack of adequate direction and the lack of a well considered management system.