"Forgotten about for 1 1/2 hours"

We attended Luton and Dunstable because it was the first place that could offer my teenage son a cardiology appointment. We had a 30 minute drive to get to the hospital and couldn't park. We had left plenty of time to find our way around an unfamiliar place. We wasted so much time trying in vain to find a parking space. We parked a 10-15 minute walk away and were nearly late for the appointment. The only people who were pleasant were the volunteer in the entrance, the staff member on ECG Reception and the ECG nurse. Everyone else looked miserable and completely disinterested. We went to Cardiology, only to be told we had to go to ECG. Why they don't say this in the letter and save you wandering around like an idiot, I don't know. When we returned to Cardiology from ECG we told the nurses we were back and they told us to take a seat. The waiting room was very full, so it was clear we would have a long wait. After over an hour I began to have suspicions when people who arrived after us were going in to the see the doctors. Eventually a nurse looked at the files waiting for the doctors and said "Oh, there are 3 files and 4 patients waiting!". After a few minutes they called my son's name out - his file had been sitting on a shelf and had not been put into the system! The nurses tried to blame us, saying we had not told them we were back from ECG, which was completely untrue. Also why did it take over 1 1/2 hours for them to wonder why we were sitting there? We were in the middle of the waiting room, not tucked away around a corner! Then they told us that my son should have given them the ECG results to put into the file. 1. He walked in carrying the envelope in his hand, why didn't they ask for it? 2. The nurse who gave him the trace at ECG told him to give it to the doctor, so he was doing what he'd been told. It's bad enough to be forgotten about for so long, but then to have the blame shoved onto you is unacceptable. We'd been waiting 2 hours or more when we finally got to see a doctor, who completely failed to listen to what we were saying about my son's health. As a first experience of Luton and Dunstable Hospital it made a very bad impression.