"Disgraceful conditionsin A & E"

Anything else?

I was unimpressed when my wife attended the A & E last Monday, 28th January. We arrived just after 4pm after having been sent there by the GP because my wife was suffering from chest pains. It took a minimum of three quarters of an hour to be assessed by the admissions nurse. After that she was seen by a doctor quite quickly. We were there until I left her at 1.30am. Even though they were concerned she may be having a heart attack or an angina attack or clot on the lung it took all this time to find a bed. They put her on a trolley in the A & E ward because they did not have a bed. This is what they told me. I received a phone call from my wife and returned to pick her up at 6am that morning. We were told they would write to us to arrange an angiogram because they could not arrange one for her whilst she was in the hospital. The whole experience was absolutely dreadful. The A & E admissions dept was like a war zone where , even though there seemed to be plenty of staff working they could not cope and the whole dept was in total chaos. We met a 92 year woman who said she arrived at 5pm. We noticed her in the Admissions dept at 8pm and she was telling the staff that she was in dreadful pain and no one was attending to her. I came across her after midnight in the same area still asking for help and not receiving any which I find absolutely disgraceful. My wife and I found the whole experience frightening and upsetting.