Broken arm - can’t get seen by NHS - help please

[BrokenarmbrokenNHS]

I don’t know how to get my dd help - please could anyone advise?

My dd has an accident at school last week (Thursday). I took her for an xray at minor injuries and they said they didn’t think it was broken. A day later we had a phone call to say it was indeed broken and dd is in a lot of pain. I think it’s the radius bone as it goes into the elbow. They said they would refer to the fracture clinic and we had a choice of 2 hospitals as we are between hospitals. So I chose the more convenient one. This was on Friday on the phone.

My DD’s elbow has now been broken for 5 days. We have been referred to the wrong hospital, but I thought I will not worry about that, I will just go to it even though it’s an hour from her school. But they will not give me an appointment. I was supposed to wait to hear from them, they haven’t called. I’ve called them directly and they say she’s on some bloody list.

meanwhile my y13 dd has a broken elbow with nothing other than a sling and is shitting herself about buggering her A levels up this summer due to not being able to write and being in loads of pain.

What am I supposed to do? Why can’t we get help? This is crazy to leave a fracture for 5 days with nobody giving a shit. I foolishly thought the NHS still dealt with emergencies. I have no idea what to do. Please help.

Soupdragon has much more precise info, I wld go with that. Of course doesn't help re knowing abt exams etc but really needs someone to see her for that

I know. Mine was a serious fracture and that was the only option for me (wasn't an elbow).

But she does know, it’s a radial break which doesn’t need a cast. Radial breaks of the elbow seldom do.

The enormous amount of people who would go to A+E with this does really highlight why A+E struggle so much

Yes, but I was referring to the commenter's statement that she thought all broken elbows only got slings. Absolutely not the case.

Absolutely. Yes there was an initial confusion, but the op and her daughter know what kind of break this is, it was x rayed and it doesn’t need a cast, which is the norm, it is just a sling for a few days, then gentle movement. So I have no idea what this is about.

It is classed as an A&E Department. Epsom Hospital - look it up. I don't share a brain cell with an amoeba.

Or restbreaks

A relative of mine recently broke her shoulder/upper arm. She was able to go to a local hospital for an x-ray at minor injuries and they gave her a sling and advice. She didn't see the fracture clinic for about two weeks, when they confirmed it was a clean break, gave her physio to do and put her on the list for a physio appointment.

There's no need to go to A&E unless you are in major pain or there are other injuries (which you can overlook at first if you are in pain with the arm).

If the accident was Thursday I suspect an appointment for the fracture clinic will come through for late next week.

I did this fracture during covid. They didn't bother to X-ray (lesson learned: when asked how much pain you are in always say 10, not 6 because you can imagine pain more unbearable) and sent me away with a sling. Because it wasn't diagnosed to be broken, nobody told me that this fracture does NOT want to be bent up in a sling for days - my arm healed extremely crooked and after 6 months when I complained to the GP that I couldn't straighten my arm they did X-ray and discovered it had been broken all along. It took about a year of exercises to straighten it more or less, and it is still weaker than the other arm in certain positions where it bears weight (eg plank) . Don't want to scare you but please do check the advice on when / how to start moving and straightening it.

Please don’t give your daughter strong medication that is not prescribed for her! If she needs pain relief then speak to her GP.

Heaven almighty. YES!

How can you expect admin people to sort this out? Go to the hospital with your child and get it sorted.

@BrokenarmbrokenNHS I’m in a different country but when I broke my elbow I also tore the tricep muscle that attaches to the elbow. I had to have surgery. I hope you get seen soon.

My friend actually had social services involved for years by her leaving a child for a few days with a broken arm this is crazy (she thought she twisted it.

Briefly reading the information available online, Epsom is classed as an Emergency Department as the hospital has speciality inpatient services such as general surgery, cardiac and coronary care units, medicine and paediatrics. These inpatient facilities would not be available onsite at standalone urgent care centres or minor injury units.

Other services, such as emergency surgery, are available at St Heller hospital, Epsom's sister site (~10 km away). The on-call orthopaedic team is also based at St Helier hospital. X-ray systems at both sites would be shared meaning that x-rays taken at Epsom can also be reviewed by the specialist based at St Helier..

ED staff working at both hospitals would follow the same orthopaedic referral pathways, which results in ED staff referring patients either to fracture clinic (green injury), to the orthopaedic doctor for advice and guidance (amber injury), and/or face-to-face orthopaedic review at St Helier (red injury). ED staff can discuss amber and refer red injuries as required to the orthopaedic team 24/7. Fracture clinic services are available at Epsom hospital.

https://www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/emergency-department/

https://www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/general-surgery/

Amoebas are fascinating, however they are single celled organisms and do not have a brain or any nervous system.

Not sure why people are making out that the OP is being hysterical or unreasonable in complaining about how the hospital has handled this. I’m always bowled over by how much good info there is on MN, but the OP shouldn’t have had to start a thread here to get it. It sounds like she was given sod all useful info by the person she spoke to on the phone (she’s not an osteopathy specialist so how is she supposed to know WTF to do with a ‘radial head fracture’?) If I had a child about to do A levels and this was happening I’d be doing my nut too.

The NHS is underfunded and it’s scary and/or infuriating when you’re the patient on the sharp end of a struggling department. Both things are true.

In hindsight, this is the case. With the addition that we should have been told to try to mobilise the arm. Dd has had it in the sling for all 5 days and she should have been doing little exercises and not had it in the sling the whole time. I wish I had known and do blame the system for not telling us. I couldn’t have googled the exercises as I had no idea what kind of fracture it was. I found out this afternoon.

Typically it's fracture clinic who give ongoing mobility advice to patients referred to them. When you can, feedback to the unit that you weren't given information about your daughter's diagnosis, her management and that you were referred to the wrong fracture clinic.

The system can and does get things wrong. When I broke my leg I was triaged over the phone and told it was probably soft tissue damage and to go to minor injuries if I wanted. Then when I went to minor injuries I was told - you've walked in. It's not broken. It was broken in three places

I also was treated pretty poorly when I was in hospital - but the upside was that the surgeons put me back together again. If you aren't happy you have the right to raise it

This is right but the phone call last week didnt even tell me it was a radial head fracture. Just told me it was her elbow. Hence me losing my shit at not getting a fracture clinic appt.

I wasnt told what my fracture was when I went to minor injuries to be X rayed when I broke my leg. Just that it was broken. I guess that's because the staff who do the X rays aren't qualified to tell you what the specific fracture is and it needs to be passed over to someone with more specific knowledge.

Again - it's very normal to wait a week or so for a fracture clinic appointment. Particularly as she broke it last Friday yes? You weren't going to get a letter with an appointment yesterday.

I can understand why you are upset but it's completely normal to have to wait a week or so before you get an appointment at the fracture clinic

@BrokenarmbrokenNHS sounds like a shit show. Hopefully it won’t have bad long term consequences for your daughter but I don’t blame you for being pissed off.

I’ve had similar with my elderly dad over the past couple of years. People who have medical training/understand how the NHS works don’t always realise how it feels when you’re on the other side of the fence. (Just like I probably can’t imagine what it’s like to be a hospital doctor right now.) There have been times with my dad when I’ve been desperately googling NICE guidelines and medical journals trying to work out what’s happening to him, because nobody in the NHS had time to help us (complex geriatric stuff, multiple conditions)— and I know I’m not remotely competent to be doing that. It’s scary and it feels really chaotic, and like if you don’t take charge something bad might happen. It’s not crazy or unreasonable to want to have basic health-critical information delivered in a timely way. And the NHS just doesn’t always provide that at the moment, sadly.

The only thing I’d say — re you wanting your tax back — is, check out how much osteo treatment would cost you if you went private. The costs for this stuff are so much higher than any of us realise. The NHS is struggling because it’s incredibly expensive and we aren’t actually paying enough to get the level of service we want.

You were realistically not going to get a fracture clinic appointment one working day after your daughter broke her elbow.

Two years ago I broke my leg in three places. I was put in a cast and sent home and then I assume my X rays were passed to a consultant. I was then given an appointment to go and see him where he told me I needed an operation and then I had to go home and wait for a slot to be free.

It wasn't great being in pain for that length of time but as I said earlier there were probably people who had smashed themselves up much more than I did. They have to prioritise cases but getting a fracture clinic appointment two days after a break really isn't realistic.

oh sorry I missed that she had an x-ray and just noticed you said no doctor had seen her. If they’ve seen the xray that should be enough to assess on - there isn’t much else seeing the arm would do.

My DH's experience was almost the exact opposite of this. He had a skiing accident abroad and the doctor there said it was a soft tissue injury only. When we returned to the UK he went, as directed by the insurance company, to A&E, driving himself there (on the same trip I had broken my shoulder and so couldn't drive)! He was seen and within an hour a consultant had him admitted for surgery the next day as he had broken his knee requiring pins to fix.