"Lady with a sick child turned away"

Yesterday evening at 17.50, on the advice on my doctors I tried to attend the Urgent Care unit to be met by a security man advising myself and another lady with an obviously very sick child that it was closed due to capacity. Although disappointing for myself I was more concerned regarding the little boy. His poor mother was carrying him and he was completely slumped over her shoulder and obviously very unwell and was being told basically she needed to go somewhere else. I understand that this is an urgent care unit and has only the capacity to take so many patients especially if they have emergency cases but are some of the people attending doing so because they are being sent there as they cant get an appointment that day at the doctors or in the case I have read today on one other comment, using the service for dressing replacement which should be done by the doctors practice nurse [no offence to the lady who attended with her son for this] but she would not have been waiting 2 hours at her own doctors.

Surely there should be someone with medical background who could assess a patient prior to turning them away. This little boy was obviously not well. I checked with his mother if she had come by car as even feeling unwell myself if she didn't have transport I would have driven her anywhere to get this little one some treatment. As it stood, if she had to take him then to A&E it would take at least half an hour in the rush hour.

All this delay for a sick child could make a difference with his treatment, it all seemed wrong. As a parent myself I know that a sick child is distressing enough without being sent away from medical treatment by a security guard.

I hope he is ok. I am not complaining about the service just that I don't think it should be a security guard making the decision. There are a lot of people campaigning about the possible changes to the appointment service for blood tests, perhaps the same people could get behind supporting this service which I think is as important possible more so.