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Care Opinion

Made to feel stupid

Posted By Scamp94

"Made to feel stupid"

About: Forth Valley Royal Hospital / Accident & emergency

(as a parent/guardian),

My baby woke suddenly in the night with respiratory distress. Living five minutes from the hospital we made the short drive to A&E rather than waiting longer for an ambulance. 

When I arrived at 4:30am on a Saturday morning carrying my baby who was visibly in respiratory distress the receptionist asked me if I had an appointment and whether I had called my GP.

1) Who has ever heard of making an appointment for the emergency room? Isn’t that the point of emergencies?

2) What GP is working at 4am on a Saturday because clearly I’m missing out on something getting standard 9-5 Monday to Friday care.

3) Of course I didn’t waste time and potentially endanger my babies life by making silly phone calls and looking for appointments when my baby couldn’t breath! Oxygen is kind of essential for functions like living. 

I feel like the attitude and questions were completely out of order and unnecessary and could be potentially harmful as they made me feel like I was causing an inconvenience with my unplanned visit or that it was a waste of services or something that I didn’t need to be using. This could be harmful if someone with less confidence was spoken to in this manner and risks a parent not coming to A&E in future with a child in respiratory distress because they were made to feel stupid and like an inconvenience for being there.

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Responses

Response from Glynis Fotheringham, Senior Charge Nurse , Emergency Department FVRH and MIU in SCH, ForthValley 5 years ago
Glynis Fotheringham
Senior Charge Nurse , Emergency Department FVRH and MIU in SCH,
ForthValley

I am responsible for the day to day running of the Emergency Department and MIU in SCH

Submitted on 14/05/2018 at 15:28
Published on Care Opinion at 16:25

Dear Scamp34,

I am sorry to hear about your experience, I would be happy to look into this further. To do this I would need to know date attended and patients name. If you were happy to email me this information I will discuss it with the reception staff.

I hope the rest of your time in ED was better and that your baby is now recovering.

Glynis.fotheringham@nhs.net

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Response from Jason Graham, Operational Manager, Endoscopy/Renal/Dermatology/Opthalmology/Chronic Pain, NHS Forth Valley 5 years ago
Jason Graham
Operational Manager, Endoscopy/Renal/Dermatology/Opthalmology/Chronic Pain,
NHS Forth Valley

Submitted on 15/05/2018 at 09:04
Published on Care Opinion at 09:07

Dear Scamp94

Please accept my apologies if you felt that the questions at reception in the Emergency Department were intended to make you feel stupid or unwanted. Any child with respiratory distress is a very frightening thing and we do appreciate that.

We often do ask these types of questions to fully asses the situation and ensure that you are in the correct location. It is possible to have had and assessment from NHS 24 and be advised to attend either the Emergency Department or the Out of Hours GP service. Understanding this would allow reception staff to locate any information that NHS 24 may have sent on to us and allow us to ensure your child is seen a quickly as possible. So we do like to check.

The reasons for these questions should have been explained to you.

We really do appreciate this feedback and will share it with the reception staff so they can use this to improve how they communicate these questions.

I do hope that your child made a full recovery.

Please feel free to contact SCN Glynis Fotheringham with any further information.

Kind regards

Jason Graham

Clinical manager

Urgent and Emergency Care

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