"verbal response from the Doctor concerned."

Anything else?

I was advised by a very experienced Nurse on the hospital staff to attend A & E due to a problem with the thumb on my left hand.The problen could have been due to 'skier's thumb' or a bone chip but being a lay person I could not determine this. The Dr, whose name I did not catch, as he decided to inform me of his name with his back towards me, although hearing my description of what I thought was wrong, did not listen but treated me to a verbal tirade of the missuse of the A & E system instead. Whatever his thoughts on the missuse of A & E, I was there on advice from a responsible person and had every right to be there. Contacting my G.P would have served no purpose as the thought was that the thumb might have needed to be x- rayed and this cannot be done at a G.P surgery. I, although not minding having to wait at all, would not have sat in the waiting room for approximately two hours on a whim if I really thought the Dr's adviice was not important. As a patient with a non life- threatening complaint, as he went to great lengths to tell me, I took my turn after those in greater need and maybe he should recognise this and offer the service that is there for everybody and not spend valuable time exhorting what A & E stands for as I can and did assure him, that I was perfectly able to understand but still had a right to be there and access the service. This experience was very worrying as many older people could have been very upset by this Dr's attitude and then felt unable to access the service if and when it was essential to their health needs.