"Prompt service but poor care"

I badly tor my shin when I fell through some floorboards into the foundations of an old house. There was a severe approx 13cm laceration that a one point when to the bone. I held it together and applied pressure to stem the profuse bleeding whilst i was driven to Minor Injuries.

My brother collected a wheelchair for me and had arranged for me to be assessed asap as he feared that the injury would be too severe and we may have to go on to A&E.

All went well, everyone was polite and helpful - assessed as treatable on site within 5 mins, wound cleaned and dressed within 1hr 5 mins.

However, given the severity of the laceration and the conditions it had occurred, I assumed i would need and I asked for antibiotics. I was told that they would not be necessary. I just had to make sure the seaweed dressing was removed in 3-4 days (I could do this myself if I wished), there was no need to regular re-dressing and it would heal it self in 6-8 weeks.

I went to another Walk-In 3 days later as i was in considerable pain and to have the seaweed removed. They cleaned the wound, re-steristriped in, re-dressed it and suggested I changed the dressing every other day to keep an eye on it.

The pain increased day on day and I became unable to function in the day to day thing i take for granted.

I returned again to the second Walk-In and they gave me antibiotics for what was then a badly infected wound/bone.I am re-dressing my wound daily now and visiting the Walk-In twice weekly, handing over to my GP after the Easter Bank Holiday weekend,

When i was told that i didn't need to worry and didn't need any going care or antibiotics i trusted the practitioner and was pleased with the "good news".

In retrospect, though I am not a medic, I do feel that given the circumstances of the accident and size/depth of the wound if I had been given a more active treatment plan and/or antibiotics I would not be in the poorly state I am now and

I would be further down the road of recovery as well as saving the NHS time and money