"Where are we going?"

Having been directed to attend an Out Of Hours clinic appointment made for us by NHS Direct over the phone we went to the hospital today

The directions had been “go to the main entrance/reception, there’s a sign pointing to Out Of Hours on the left”

There wasn’t a sign and we ended up at Out Of Hours Children’s We had to access this ward via an intercom only to be directed across the corridor to another ward who said we were in the wrong place.

A member of staff from this new ward was gracious enough to take us to the proper location for the Out Of Hours clinic Which was Orthopaedics and Fracture, only to find that this was closed.

She then checked with a colleague and was told the clinic had moved to A&E so we tried there.

We queued for the A&E reception; the A&E receptionist was very curt and her window was only fractionally open making us feel quite frankly unwelcome.

We were then told we needed the GP services window on the left of where we were standing - this window was not labelled in a way that is visible as you enter the waiting area and has we known we could’ve been seen to straight away.

Once we were seen despite being late (due to having been running around all over the hospital looking for the correct clinic location) we were seen to quickly and efficiently. GP were friendly, direct and helpful.

Overall the main problem was that clearly the hospital departments were not communicating effectively regarding changes in the location of the Out Of Hours clinic and needed much better clearer signposting.

Our medical issue was not serious but our infant son was quite distressed and screaming most of the time due to being very tired and unsettled. All of that could have been significantly curtailed had the clinic been easily accessed.