to think that a child with a neck injury should be seen quite quickly?

[sickoftheholidays]

took DS to a&e earlier as whilst play wrestling he suddenly started screaming with pain and said his neck was stinging, pointing to his spine. took an hour to even be seen by triage.
Am I being unreasonable to think that an hour is far too long to be waiting to see triage? I thought the whole point of triage is that you were seen almost immediately to check if you were really dying/semi dying/slightly dying, and then wait an appropriate amount of time to see the doctor?

I'm sure all the other people waiting felt the same.

I'm sure they did, actually, my post should read "isnt an hour a bit long to be waiting to see triage" its knack all to do with the type of injury and more to do with being concerned that the triage nurse runs triage on top of normal duties, so only does about 4 people an hour.

A trapped nerve comes after profuse bleeding.

Did you / he walk in? Because if you're able to walk you are automatically excluded from the 'semi dying' category. If on the other hand you were seriously concerned about a neck injury and called an ambulance so that he could be transported with his neck safely immobilised, then I agree an hour is too long.

well yes... if he was running around the waiting room he may not have been high priority :)

I would agree that it seems a very long time, but it all depends what else is going on and what the other patient's complaints are. Unless you have access to all that information, you can't really complain in that situation.

Presumably their judgement wasn't completely wrong, as you are here and able to MN instead of being in hospital with a severely sick child

I thought that the whole point of triage was that they assess how ill you are and decide your priority from there - I have walked into A&E with an unstable spinal fracture after falling off a horse - if I had to wait an hour for triage, it could have been a real problem. Thankfully 5 years ago, you barely got the seat warm before you were called into triage, as there was a dedicated triage nurse in there full time, not 3 different people who are also treating patients, doing dressings etc.
Until DS had been seen in triage, no-one had any idea of the severity of his injury except for the receptionist who isnt medically trained (although I admit they are knowledgable) and I think an hour is a bit long for anyone to wait for an initial assessment.

What was the diagnosis OP?

subluxed a vertebrae in his neck.

Ouch @ this

Hope he's going to be OK, should probably have had a neck collar put on immediately?

To all those parents on that Saturday morning when the Children's Hospital A&E was packed ( swine flu was rife), I apologise for running in.

I feel a slight twinge of guilt cos the receptionists ignored all those queuing at their desk and marched us through to a room.
For taking up the time of 2 doctors and 3 nurses to attend to my 10 month old and attend to him for over 6 hours (and we also grabbed some other Drs and nurses to help too) before they felt happy enough to transfer us to a ward.

But he'd stopped breathing.

I once sat there huffing and puffing to myself on why weren't they seeing to my son ( not the same kid) who was crying in pain with a hugely swollen leg. I know now why.... The staff were probably saving a kid's life.

I know it's frustrating but I am so grateful they ignored the queuing system for me and my baby.

Yes pancake.

Dedicated triage nurse or not if there are 20 people in front of you you will still have to wait. only way to jump the queue is to do something really dramatic such as chop the end of your finger off and faint like dh did once or like pancakes poor baby. Is he ok now pancake?

Op - how is your lad now? What a shock!

Unbelievably he is totally fine. we both suffer from joint hypermobility so as soon as I saw what happened, and heard him say his neck hurtI knew pretty much what the problem was. My back does the same thing and its bloody agonising, but as soon as the joint resettles itself its Ok. I was just very twitchy as he was pointing to C4/5 which is NOT a good place to have a trapped nerve!
Pancakes - there is never any doubt that your type of situation was of the utmost urgency - thats akin to an ambulance arrival, which always takes priority, and if there was a full time triage nurse, I would happily have waited my turn, I just get cross when the hospital try to make cuts by not having dedicated triage, and I believe it really puts people at risk. Also in the waiting room with me there was a young boy who was clearly very ill, clutching his stomach, ashen faced and looking like he was about to puke everywhere - a likely appendicitis, he had to wait an hour too.