to think A&E should see a child with a bleeding gaping head injury a bit sooner than 3 hours??

[surprisenumber3]

Took DS2 to A&E last night. He had a gaping gash to the back of his head, was shaking, clothes soaked in blood (he is just 5 BTW). He also had purple spots all over his eyes from the pressure. The woman on A&E reception said she'd put him on the 'minor injuries' list just so he'd be seen quicker.

After a while DH went to ask how long, they said 5 people in front of us. Different woman so he explained the situation. By now DS2 was falling asleep and we were desperately trying to keep him awake. This woman said she'd speak to 'medical staff'.

Sat and waited. Adults with little burns, holding their wrists, bruises etc came through door and were seen in an hour.

By now I was fuming and went up to reception desk again. Explained situation and asked why all these people were being seen before him (twas midnight by now!). Was told it was because we were on the 'minor injuries' list and it takes longer!!!

I then asked why and she said she would get a doctor. A doctor came, told us off when we said he'd done it 3.5 hours ago. I told him we'd been there for over 3 hours. He looked totally shocked, cut my poor babies hair and 'glued' him back together.

AIBU to write a letter to the hospital asking them to explain their procedure??

You may want to read the Royal College of Paediatric and Child Health's policy on children in A&E.

All children should have a brief clinical assessment within 15minutes.

Children's waiting areas are meant to be physically separate from the adult waiting area.

www.rcpch.ac.uk/doc.aspx?id_Resource=2621

However:

1. calling a 999 ambulance does not get you seen quicker in A&E

2. Patients are normally seen in order of their triage category (assigned by a member of nursing staff)

3. If it is busy you may have to wait.

Staff don't like to keep people waiting but if someone really sick comes in then they will get looked after first and may consume a lot of resources

Also, if you see staff taking a break bear in mind that you don't know the whole story. A colleague and I once got yelled at by an irate father when we were having a (very) brief glass fo water prior to attacking a 2 hr backlog of patients.

The reason for the backlog - we had been dealing with a very ill child (who then died).

I really needed that glass of water and 10 mins to gather my thoughts prior to going back out into the bedlam of a busy A&E department.

Shouting at me didn't help the patients get seen quicker as I ended up in tears.

at least 20 who arrived after us went in before us. I know we don't know what came in through the ambulance entrance, but I know of all those 20 and all of them were walking and smiling!!

basically, it boils down to the receptionist putting us on the 'minor' list. That is just to see a nurse. People seeing the doctors were a LOT quicker. She was wrong, she made a mistake and she really must not taken it upon herself to do it again.

I got seen within 10 mins when I turned up saying 'I've had a miscarriage and the baby is in my handbag'!

Maybe you should try that next time.

My case certainly wasn't an emergency. I was relieved at getting seen so quick but felt guilty all the same walking past very sick people though.

Remember this for next time:

Always leave as much blood on your DCs as you possibly can. Don't mop it up. You WANT it to look critical. The doctor can always send you away to wait if it isn't but at least you'll shock people into seeing you quickly.

thanks gasman. My son was so scared and shaking because of his injury and he had to sit with lots of drunks, men coming in handcuffed to police and gangs of youths shouting things.

There was a children's separate A&E around the corner but no-one seemed to go in it after 9 pm. It was filled with books and toys but all my son had to look at was drunks and yobs.

thanks gasman. My son was so scared and shaking because of his injury and he had to sit with lots of drunks, men coming in handcuffed to police and gangs of youths shouting things.

There was a children's separate A&E around the corner but no-one seemed to go in it after 9 pm. It was filled with books and toys but all my son had to look at was drunks and yobs.

BSM - I think you should have been seen quickly.

His clothes, hair, skin was completely soaked in blood, as well as the masses of babywipes I had in my hand - she didn't even look at him.

gasman, that is awful and ofcourse A and E staff need breaks like everyone else. Having a child die in your presence must be horrendous, even if you know you did your absolute best.

I think that we have to remember that doctors and nurses are human. They need their breaks otherwise they will make fatal mistakes.

I think some parents need to be reminded that the sun does not shine out of their lo ar$e. I still think a bump on the head is a minor injury and does not merit being top priority. When a bump is more serious there are usually other symptoms.

It would be interesting to know the qualifications of the receptionist. Prehaps she was a nurse and you didn't realise.

I don't buy this put him on minor injuries so will be seen quicker. On that basis, 10 minor injury patients could be seen making a more seriously injured patient wait longer. Where's the sense in that?

My DD was blue lighted from one hospital to another (first ambulance took us somewhere that couldn't treat her ) and I was really shocked that she wasn't seen straight away. I had assumed she would have been for a serious injury.

I agree. Why would minor injuries be seen quicker than major injuries?

clever bloody receptionist/nurse(!), triaging without looking, maybe she was mystic meg!

I have 2 boys, they have lots of bumps on the head, this was much worse, he was falling asleep, he had purple spots appearing all over his face even though it was the back of his head he banged.

Any decent parent would be appalled at the service received.

Oh, and the sun shines out of all my DC's arses

I agree they need their breaks, that is not the issue here.

she just said there was more of a list for people waiting to see the doctor than the nurse. She said he would need to see a nurse and then wait again to see a doctor. I said this was fine because I just wanted SOMEONE to see him.

She was completely talking out of her arse of course. There was one nurse seeing the minors and at least 7 different doctors seeing the others.

Reallytired It wasn't a bump. The OP says it was a gash and her lo was falling asleep (granted this could have been the time of day).

Also the little child was clearly distressed. The mother too was clearly distressed. How on earth could she tell the difference between falling asleep due to tiredness and falling asleep due to concussion.

The situation was made worse by the fact that she had to force a distressed, tired kiddie to stay awake, and this whole scenario was due to a receptionist who hadn't even seen the child making a decision she was unqualified to make.

thanks for that BSM. I have had 10 years of boys bumping heads and this was different. Having worked on a hospital ward for 15 years I do know what to look for and when to worry and I was extremely concerned, so concerned in fact that I started having contractions (at 27 weeks) and I know it was just caused by stress.

that is disgusting! id complain. they have no sympthany well its not even that that is so disgusting your poor baby. my kid has ezcema and scratches till he bleeds so i have to stop with him all night and do u know what the doctor said" CUT HIS NAILS" i know its not quite as bad as yours course apart frm i have to stay awake most of the nite else he wakes up looking like something out of a horror movie! but it just goes to show most of them dont give a shit and quite frankly sould not be doing the job.

Surely the point is that surprise's ds was triaged by the receptionist and not a nurse. I thought all patients coming into A & E depts should be seen by a triage nurse within a certain timescale. This seems like a majoy systems failure.

Minor injuries units generally don't have triage nurses. Although the A&E i work at is right beside the minor injuries unit the receptionists can decide to bypass the triage nurse if they think its minor i totally disagree with this but to be fair to our receptionists they usually only send limb problems. You can always, always demand to speak to a nurse, at the very least they should come out and roll there eyes at you but a quick glance from an experienced nurse is usually all it takes for them to decide whether your seen quicker or not

Receptionists who work at hospitals and schools are like rotweilers IMHO.

thanks all - will be interested to see the reply from the hospital.

Maybe by trying to bypass the triage system the receptionist messed up and his notes got lost? That would explain why the other patients with minor injuries who were waiting less than you were seen first.

Maybe the wait to see a minor's nurse was quicker but due to staff shortages/emergencies coming in, she had go and work with more serious patients? This put him to the back of the queue? What with him not being triaged/notes missing made the wait worse?

Maybe the receptionist forgot that the paediatric area was closed, the peadiatric nurses gone, and no one noticed because the receptionist sent his notes to the wrong area?

I think his notes somehow went missing and apart from the receptionist no one knew you were there. And because it was a different receptionist when you went back and asked what was going on, they didn't realise that you HAD been waiting for 3.5 hours and were not just exaggerating...

Still very at you not being triaged though. That's just wrong.
Even if the receptionist was a nurse filling in, she should have told you so. Unless she was employed as a receptionist but doing 2 jobs in 1. But that would be cutting corners/saving money gone mad unless they were very short staffed. Still, you should have been told that as a medical person she had assessed him and it was not serious.

YANBU and you very very right to complain because this isn't just about how long you had to wait. No triage, receptionist "triaging", possible over the counter triaging, bad prioritization of patients...

Sorry, it's late and I'm rambling...!

YANBU.Our A& E has a seperate Casualty room for children up to the age of 16.

When my ds(with special needs) was seven he fell backwards off a storage box when climbing in our garden... four foot(including his height) onto the concrete in the back garden! Mum, my aunt and i bundled him into the car and we set off for casualty(25 miles away) about three miles away he was falling asleep so my mum did a handbrake turn and said that she knew where the local doctor lived and was going there! The GP knows us really well and even though he was off duty he let us go into the house and he assessed ds,,, he said he seemed ok and to take him home and keep an eye on him, if he was sick in the next three hours we were to go back to casualty... two hours and fifty five mins later as mum and my aunt were leaving he threw up over mums shoes! That was a trip to casualty... He was taken straight into the childrens casualty... we were seen and they decided he didnt need x raying.......we were home again two hours later! Another time he swallowed a hearing aid battery (xray job) and another time a ball bearing ( another x ray job) I think ive just made myself sound like a bad mother but im not really i promise!!

andisayhey - receptionist wasn't a nurse...for sure! I reckon his notes were lost TBH.

will let you know what they come up with!

Yanbu.

I would be complaining if I had to wait that long with a child who had a head injury too.

My ds has sliced his forehead twice now, each time we took him straight to A&E, he was immediately taken through to a separate children s area and assessed by a nurse. We did then have to wait a while to get him stitched up but had been reassured that it was ok and he was not having to sit looking at scary drunken people or the like.

I would so not be impressed! We had to take Tom to the a&e at the childrens hospital at the weekend and a nurse sees you first for assessment, then you wait for a Doc. I had to goto a&e a few years ago for me, different hospital but I remember being seen by a nurse then a doc later.

marie1979 - 'but it just goes to show most of them dont give a shit and quite frankly sould not be doing the job.'

I really take issue with this. IME, the majority of drs/nurses do not go into it for the glory/money/uniform but because they want to help people. Its not uncommon to get yelled at, spat at, assaulted (physically and/or sexually) or work a 12 hour shift with maybe a half hour break. However, I really like my job and do it to the best of my abilities.

Sounds like the receptionist was at fault not the medical staff. How can she be qualified to assess whether an injury is major or minor. If I was to write a letter of complaint I would be taking issue with the initial assessment.