One morning my grandad had a fall outside his garage and split open his head. A neighbour had found him lying on the ground and helped him inside the house and called NHS24 to receive some advice on the best action to take. The member of staff who answered the neighbour's call, advised him that he should take my grandad, who is 86 and with an open and heavily bleeding 6 inch wound on the back of his head, to his local GP. I am not an NHS specialist however I am fully aware that taking an elderly man who has fallen and split open his head to his GP would not be the most appropriate action. His neighbour however followed the staff members advice and got a taxi with him to the surgery.
When he arrived, the doctor, as predicted, said there was nothing he could do and that stitches/staples would be required as well as further tests. The on call doctor cleaned the wound as much as possible and said that he would need to go to hospital but sent him home to wait on the ambulance which they apparently called. I don't know why the ambulance couldn't have been called to the surgery.
By this point, my grandad's neighbour contacted my mum and myself to let us know what had happened and that they were at home, waiting on the ambulance. Both myself and my mum left our work early and arranged to meet my grandad at the hospital. However 4 hours later, an ambulance still hadn't turned up and my mum had to take him to A&E herself. Once they arrived at A&E, my grandad was left to sit for a further 5 hours until his wound was cleaned and stapled. At about 9pm at night after waiting over 10 hours on proper treatment, he was eventually checked over and we were informed that he wouldn't be able to be alone in the house for the next 24 hours due to his head injury and therefore my brother had to stay with him that night.
Given his age and the size of the wound, I find it hard to believe that someone with a broken finger was more of an emergency than a head injury. I am absolutely disgusted in the lack of urgency and the length of time it took for my grandad to have proper treatment and also with the service received from NHS24.
"NHS24 & A&E waiting times"
About: NHS 24 / NHS 24 (111 service) NHS 24 NHS 24 (111 service) Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France / Accident & Emergency Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France Accident & Emergency EH16 4SA Scottish Ambulance Service / Emergency Ambulance Scottish Ambulance Service Emergency Ambulance EH12 9EB
Posted by Aprilll (as ),
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