"Everone was very pleasant and caring, waiting in..."

What I liked

The staff that dealt with my injury were cheerful and friendly.

Although my injury was very painful, They avoided hurting me any further unnecessarily.

After the initial long wait to be seen by the doctor, I was seen by each department fairly quickly. Everywhere I had to go in the department, it was clean, tidy and uncluttered.

There was never any unnecessary noise.

What could be improved

The chairs in the waiting room were hard and uncomfortable.

I am a lady in my 60's and had fallen and hurt my arm badly, I was in considerable pain, and alone initially, as a neighbour had called the ambulance and could not accompany me. So it was not pleasant to see the information up in lights, that the waiting time was 2-3 hours. Which was rather surprising as I could only see 3 or four other people in the waiting room.

I had tripped and fallen onto my hard patio flags, crushing my arm between the paving stones and my body. My whole arm hurt, from shoulder to fingers, but when I went to be x-rayed, the lovely young lady there only x-rayed my elbow which did have a crack in it. I asked her if she would x-ray my wrist too, but she said "No, I'm sorry, it only says your elbow on the paper."

I understand that she had to keep to the rules, and so I trusted the wisdom of the medics.

However, just a padded wrist sling was prescribed, and I was told I could go home.

That all happened on a Tuesday. The following week my hand and wrist still hurt and the bruising was still increasing a lot so on the thursday, nine days after the fall, I went to my own GP. He was very concerned about my wrist and forearm, so he sent me to Rochdale Infirmary (I live in Littleborough) for an x-ray on my wrist.

They discovered that I had broken my wrist, possibly on both sides. They prescribed a cast which goes round my thumb and stops only 2 inches short of my elbow.

So, what could have been improved?

The waiting room chairs could be padded when the waiting times are so long.

The waiting time is too long when a person is disabled by an accident and in a lot of pain.

They could have done a more thorough investigation of my arm and wrist.

.

Anything else?

You need not necessarily put all this, or any of this, on your comments website. I just wanted to let you know about the mistakes in my treatment, so that it may not happen to someone else.

I still can not turn my hand palm up. It will only turn with my thumbnail up, and becomes very painful at that point. It does feel a lot better supported by the cast.