"Attended with SPB"

Having attended A&E yesterday with my friend SPB, I was shocked at the lack of respect, compassion, understanding and professionalism shown by certain individuals.

I am both physically and mentally healthy, and do not have much personal involvement with the NHS, except to assist my friend to appointments where necessary, this appointment was tarnished by a senior doctor, who, after being told of my friends mental health problems, took absolutely no notice of her state of mind at all, it took me a tremendous amount of persuasion to get her there in the first place, as her agoraphobia meant she didn't even want to leave her flat, her BDD meant that the effort it took to show people the swellings on her body was immense, her bipolar 1 was in manic phase (she apologised on several occasions for speaking too fast) meaning she was becoming very emotional and stressed with the situation and lack of compassion shown to her problems.

She has exhibited signs of a problem which had taken the lives of two of her maternal family line, and was very worried that she may be suffering from the same problem, the reason we were at A&E on that day, so to be virtually told that she was imagining it was more than she could bear, after the doctor left, we exited very quickly, not even knowing if the hospital had finished with us, then the tears started, once again she had been left with no answers to her problems, no definitive medical reason for these swellings appearing, and seemingly no one actually cares as long as they have got another person out if the door and reduced the overall wait times in A&E.

Perhaps if the 10 people laughing and joking around the nurses station were actually to be more proactive, more efficient and more empathetic to the patients, then the NHS would be a better place.