"Kind staff but chaos at the weekend - very..."

Anything else?

Having waited in A&E for over 10 hours on Sun 7 April my mother was finally admitted (but only into MAU not a proper bed) at 1am on Mon morning. The kindness of the staff in dealing with her was not at all an issue - they handled her very compassionately - but we were kept in two separate rooms whilst she waited to be assessed without any information at all being given about what was going on. It was a bit like being in an airport where a flight is delayed and no-one bothers to let you know what is happening or likely length of delay or where you can get any food/drink etc and there did seem to be a lot of staff just standing around the central islands. It also appeared that because the staff were used to seeing lots of dementia patients they were completely oblivious to the impact that was having on the other patients, some of whom were very ill and clearly distressed by their behaviour e.g. shouting out all night and, in one sad case, a man running around the ward in only his underwear - which basically meant no sleep at all for anyone else. Having seen this at first hand, I now think a hospital is the very worst place to be when you are ill!