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NHS and stitching a knife injury

6 replies

TheStirrer · 07/05/2026 13:03

Just need a vent.

My daughter very unfortunately managed to cut her hand badly whilst cooking and ended up in A&E on Weds Eve. She’s a student miles away in Sheffield and luckily a friend took her to a&e where the usual wait ensued. Ok it took ages but we expected that!
It was deep and needed plastics to look at it but they were too busy so after 8 hours, they checked and bandaged it and gave her an appointment today.
I had assumed it would be stitched today, but no, she’s got to wait until Tuesday and they said it would be an even longer wait if she had needed to go to major rather than minor surgery.
They also said bring entertainment as she may need to wait a long time and may be bumped if something more urgent comes in!
I am completely flabbergasted it takes a week to get an injury properly stitched. I appreciate she’s not at deaths door but it is deep snd was lucky not to have done some serious damage. Is this just the norm now? Angry

OP posts:
Callmeback · 07/05/2026 13:09

Well it's clearly not urgent so they're prioritising people who are. Completely right.

Greybeardy · 07/05/2026 13:42

Delayed wound closure is correct for some lacerations… perhaps they’re just following the evidence based guidelines for the injury she has?

limetrees32 · 07/05/2026 13:46

I'd be shocked as well OP.
If the delay is protocol as described by greybeardy above has this been explained to your daughter?

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Delici · 07/05/2026 13:49

It depends on the cut so without knowing more it’s impossible to say if it’s unreasonable to wait.

Crwysmam · 07/05/2026 13:51

My DS cut his hand badly on glass a few years ago. I regret taking him to A&E since as a dentist I am perfectly capable of stitching a simple but deep hand lac, but since it was my son and glass was involved I thought it better to have it seen by “the experts”.
The “expert” turned out to be a junior doctor who had to you tube how to do it. Made a pigs ear out of the procedure resulting in the wound edges being rolled so when the sutures were removed it opened up. It then took weeks to heal properly leaving a nasty scar.

DS is quite proud of it, he reckons it makes him look hard.

At the time it was still Covid rules and since he was over 18 I wasn’t allowed in. Had I been with him I would have insisted on plastics being called out.

DS had been spiked, which is why he’d ended up with the injury. Was not really with it when it was being stitched but did find it amusing that the doctor had to find a friend for advice. The biggest failure was that they ignored it was a glass injury and didn’t do an X-ray to check for any glass shards in the wound.

You could also see all the tendons, in fact the first thing I did when I saw it was to get him to grip my hand.

What made matters worse was he was going to India on a cricket tour the day the sutures were removed.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

If I was you OP I would be on the way to fetch your DD and take her to your local A&E today.

My DS had cellulitis in his foot recently, he’s in Wales where the NHS is even worse than in England. It was easier for me to drive down with antibiotics than for him to wait in A&E or try to see his GP, so he could start treatment quickly before the infection spread further or he developed sepsis. Fortunately I have access to prescription only drugs via colleagues and friends.

TheStirrer · 07/05/2026 17:03

Thanks all. Interesting to hear perspectives.
Yes it’s not urgent but seems daft to have 3 trips to hospital before it gets stitched in terms of admin for all the staff and they also haven’t explained the reasons why they haven’t done it yet which would make it easier to understand.

In the old days they would have just done it there and then …..

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