"Hanging around for too long to go home"

I visited A&E with my son with a broken wrist and the staff there were very good except I think they could of given us the request for the x ray before we left for the department instead of waiting for the request to come on the system as it didn't come through till after we had got there. We were offered the option for my son to stop in on the ward as it was nearly 11pm and we had been there since 6.30pm as he was scheduled for surgery the following morning but we went home instead as he wanted to sleep in his own bed.

We arrived on the ward and was shown to his bed and it wasn't long before the anaesthetist came to ask questions after the staff nurse had asked us the same questions and my son was weighed and his observations were done. We were told we would see the consultant who would be doing the surgery but he didn't come but as we were on our journey to the theatre he stopped us on the corridor as he was going in the opposite direction. The staff member that took my son down in the wheelchair was lovely thank goodness the consultant wasn't long till they got back and my son's manipulation of his wrist was complete by the very friendly surgeon and lovely staff. As I was allowed to go into the receiving room until he was put to sleep. The member of staff that walked me out had real empathy of what I was going through it really helped as I was emotional. When I went with the staff nurse to recovery I was told my son didn't have any wires in his arm just the cast .He had gone down at 9am and was ready from recovery at 10.15am.

Back on the ward my son was made comfortable and his observation were done regularly and he enjoyed his lunch. The thing that really annoyed us was we were told the consultant would come and see my son to see if it was okay for him to go home. The staff nurse had bleeped him or one of his team at 3.00pm and it was 6.30pm before anyone came. Before this the sister came to tell us they had bleeped them again and went through how to look use his sling and they said to keep it elevated. But they did say that he had wires in his arm which I explained to them that I knew he didn't as I had been told in recovery. They apologize after checking his notes. We think the doctor who came was a junior doctor because they said after checking his feeling in his fingers they said if at anytime he felt numbness or tingerling to come back to the ward or go back to A&E. The sister /practitioner had to remind them to write in my sons notes that they had discharged him. When they had gone the staff nurse said we could not just turn up at the ward we would have to go to A&E. We were not given any discharge papers or pain relief and was told if we hadn't had an appointment for a follow up by Tuesday we should ring the consultants secretary. We left for home at 6.50pm very frustrated and extremely tired.

Maybe there should be a new system in place to discharge patients quickly to alleviate this.