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Suicidal at A&E - useless and upsetting

Posted By Bella4515

"Suicidal at A&E - useless and upsetting"

About: Glasgow Royal Infirmary / Accident & Emergency

(as a carer),

Me and my boyfriend were new to Glasgow and he was suffering severe depression, but since moving our referrals etc were slow or lost and we were still awaiting proper help from the GP. One night I found him bleeding a lot from extensive self harm, and he was having a suicidal breakdown. NHS 24 told me to take him up to A&E straight away, so we went by taxi. 

It was about 4 hours of waiting to see a doctor, who just sent him home and told him to wait for the GP and try meditating.... We had to wait all that time in the waiting room, freezing, with him sobbing and still having an episode. But actually, what was worse was the treatment in triage. We were taken to a shared room and asked so why are you here?, so he obviously felt awful telling the nurse in front of other patients. I hate to complain about nursing staff, but this nurse was so cold and just so clearly unsympathetic - asking unempathetic questions without any privacy, showing no remorse, standing up above him typing away without eye contact.

 The whole thing was so upsetting and just confirmed for him that nobody cares and he'll never be taken seriously. Since then he has had further suicide attempts and still little help. 

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Responses

Response from Lorna Fairlie, Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 5 years ago
Lorna Fairlie
Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager,
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

I work in a small team in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde which seeks to involve patients and carers in the work of the NHS. The biggest part of my role is in managing feedback projects across the Board area, one of which is Patient Opinion. It is my job to give our patients and carers the opportunity to give us feedback, and to make sure that this is passed to the right people to help us improve the services we provide.

Submitted on 04/12/2018 at 16:33
Published on Care Opinion at 16:36

Dear Bella4515,

I am so sorry to read about what a difficult time your boyfriend is having, and I know that as someone so close to him this will be an extremely upsetting time for you as well. This will also be made worse by being new to the city and not being sure where to turn for help - I am glad that your boyfriend has already asked for help from the GP, and you did the right thing taking him to A&E on that occasion. I am only sorry however that he did not feel fully supported when he was there.

I will be sending your feedback on to the manager at A&E at the Glasgow Royal, as it is important for staff to be able to hear and reflect on the impact that they have on patients. This is important for all patients in hospital, as it is a time that people tend to feel quite anxious and vulnerable, regardless of what other mental health issues they may be facing.

Given that your boyfriend is clearly still struggling, I would urge him to get back in touch with his GP to highlight the seriousness of the situation and to see what referrals have been put in place for him. I would also like to point you both in the direction of other help in the meantime - I'll add the details for Breathing Space Scotland and the Samaritans below, both are organisations that provide a free-phone number for people who are feeling anxious, depressed or suicidal to talk to highly trained advisors. While this won't be a replacement for the ongoing support your boyfriend may need, it will hopefully provide some support in the meantime.

Breathing Space website: https://breathingspace.scot/ Telephone number: 0800 83 85 87

The Samaritans telephone number: 116 123

I sincerely hope that your boyfriend receives the support and help that he needs, and that things become much brighter for you both very soon.

Best Wishes,

Lorna

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Response from Nicole McInally, Patient Experience and Public Involvement Project Manager, PEPI, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 5 years ago
Nicole McInally
Patient Experience and Public Involvement Project Manager, PEPI,
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

Submitted on 07/12/2018 at 13:49
Published on Care Opinion at 15:10

picture of Nicole McInally

Dear Bella4515,

I would first of all like to add my own apology on behalf of the Emergency Department for the distress and upset you and your boyfriend experienced while using our service. I understand that this was an already very distressing time for you both and I am sorry that your experience with us made this more difficult. May I add my own wish for you both that you are able to access the support and ongoing care that you require.

Following your post, one of our consultants, the department lead nurse and our patient experience manager met to reflect on everything that you have said here to look at what changes we could make in our department to help address the issues you have highlighted, and hopefully make this a much easier and more supportive experience for anyone else who comes into the department suffering in a similar way. Some of the things that we have agreed to do are:

Carry out some patient feedback work, during which we will be talking to patients after triage to find out more about what that the experience was like for them, and what specifically we could learn from the triage process. We will then share this with the team in the department to reflect on, identify learning and create an agreed action plan for improvements At our team meeting we will discuss initiatives such as the “hello my name is” campaign – www.hellomynameis.org.uk Unfortunately, due to the size and workload of the department we are not always able to take patients into separate rooms when giving information, but we will look into how we can make a change so that people can let us know in the waiting room if a private matter is to be discussed so we can try to accommodate this more privately.

We would also be keen to use your story particularly to highlight to staff the impact of a patient’s experience in triage, and if you and/ or your boyfriend would like to be more directly involved in that in some way then please get in touch with our patient experience manager, Jen Angus on Jennifer.angus2@ggc.scot.nhs.uk, who will be happy to discuss this with you. I am aware however that the focus right now might be on his recovery, and so I hope the actions we’ve detailed above help you to see that we are taking this very seriously and are committed to making improvements.

To finish may I thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. It is only by hearing from those who experience our care that we are truly able to learn about what our patient’s experience and improve our services in response to this.

Regards

Russell Coulthard

General Manager

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