"Disgusting treatment and no triaging"

The department appears to have an absolute lack of triaging ability when accompanying someone attending with chest pain and palpitations. We waited for an hour and a half to be seen by anyone other than a rude receptionist. In the mean time we were kept entertained by the nurse/HCA that was supposedly busy running triage assessments talking to the receptionists in front of all those waiting about their personal life. We could very loudly overhear how they’d only had three hours sleep after moving house, that’s very comforting to those about to be in their care!

Once we were eventually called in the clinician was incredibly rude to the patient, complaining about how a young person presenting with chest pains is unlikely to need an a&e appointment. The patient was assertively informed how it is totally acceptable for them to stand among the patients discussing their personal life and asked to return to the waiting room in tears after their ‘compassionate’ consultation.

Eventually an ECG was taken and run to the doctor, where the advice was given to discharge the patient still having palpitations and chest pain without having seen them.

In future we shall elect to drive further to a different hospital as Medway is clearly not capable of meeting the 6C’s of patient care or fixing their poor CQC report.