To make a complaint about hospital experience with DD?

[Ginspirational]

2 year old DD was admitted to hospital Friday. We arrived in A&E at 12, and were finally put into a bed around 6pm. No offers of drinks/food etc came at any point during the afternoon or evening, so DH went and bought some bits from the shop. I could kind of less this pass as we came at a bit of a funny time, and we were given toast in the morning.

However.. I stayed the night with DD who woke in the middle of the night really confused and upset, so I took her out of the bay into the play room area, separate from the beds to try and calm her down - she was really going loopy at this point. A student nurse asked if I would take her and stand on the balcony outside because I was waking other patients, she didn’t even let me get my shoes on and DD was just in a baby grow.. I walked out and then straight back in because it was too cold to take her out there. They then tried to take her off me to calm her down; which absolutely wouldn’t have worked.. but nobody was listening.

AIBU to make a complaint or should I just move on and be grateful? I know NHS are over worked / under staffed but I felt like such a hindrance.

Patients shouldn’t be eating in ED until their diagnosis is clear - for example, if it transpires it’s a surgical problem they need to be fasted. A nurse who fed you would get into trouble if it turned out the problem was surgical.

I am the doctor called for difficult paediatric cannulas. There is nothing unusual, or incompetent, about staff being unable to cannulate a child. Toddlers can be the most difficult - they have small vessels but usually a decent amount of tissue overlying them, are strong and angry, and have very anxious parents with them leaning over
the cannulators.

Complain if you wish but some of your concerns come from being very ill-informed, if you remain of the view that the treatment wasn’t adequate then of course contact the hospital.

Scottishshortbread11877 , there are talks of charging for hospital food for patients going on.

@Gogogo12345 not unknown in under 5s.

@Gogogo12345 it's banned in our hospital too. Despite this,
Patient came in with skull fracture (2yr old),
Parent co slept on the camp bed in their room. Patient fell out of camp bed and made the skull fracture 100x worse and had to have a craniotomy and was in hospital for months.

Parent tried to sue the trust for failing to keep her child safe. Didn't get anywhere but it was extremely stressful.

Weve also had parents feed their children McDonald's before surgery and deny it until the anaesthesiologist spelled out the dangers, then they complained that their child would be hungry and were upset they had to wait for another theatre slot.