Would you write a letter of complaint?

[HumphreyComfreyCushion]

Just wanted to know what people would do in this situation.

DS2 (8) had a very bad cold last weekend. He had asthma when younger, but has had no asthmatic symptoms for 3.5 years.

On Monday his cold got worse. By Monday evening he was coughing badly, and starting to wheeze.

During the early hours of Tuesday morning he was vomiting, coughing almost constantly and wheezing. I put him in the bath at 4am to try and relieve the symptoms with steam, and noticed that his chest was being sucked in as he struggled to breathe.

We took him straight to casualty and told the receptionist that he was having difficulty breathing.

The triage nurse came out after about 7 minutes, didn't even look at DS2, but said to me "why didn't you go the out of hours doctors instead?".

I replied that my son was having difficulty breathing, and that I considered that to be an emergency.

She sighed and said "I suppose I'd better have a look at him then".

Needless to say, once she examined him, she saw how ill he was, he was on oxygen and given steroids within the next few minutes.

Her attitude didn't improve much though, and we were made to feel like we were being a real burden to her. She got cross with me because I asked what medicine they were giving him (the steroids), and when I asked if my DH and DS1 could join us in the room, she said "just do what you like."

The department was empty apart from us - and there was no-one else in the waiting room.

DS2 ended up in the children's ward for three nights, and came home yesterday. He was on continuous oxygen for over 48 hours, plus nebulisers, inhalers and steroids.

DH thinks we should write a letter to the children's ward, saying how great they have been, and commmenting how brilliant they were in comparison to A & E.

My mum thinks we should leave it, as DS2 is now home safe and A & E might have had a very busy and traumatic shift before we arrived.

I want to complain about the A & E nurse; I would have been quite happy to have been given a lecture about using A & E resources if she had examined my child and deemed him well enough to not need hospital treatment. But she hadn't even looked at him when she made her commments.

We were made to feel like time-wasters, and this was not what we needed when we were already so scared and worried about our child.

What would you do?

I would complain, too, and also mention in passing how delighted you were with the children's ward so they know you're not just a whinger, IYSWIM. My dd2 has been admitted twice this yr and I don't know how I would have coped had it not been for the kindness and professionalsim of the staff. I so feel for you.

No Humphrey,you're quite right,having read more closely.
Fecking appalling.

i would definitly complaine!!!

hello Humphrey- my previous role was NHS complaints so here's my twopenneth fwiw:

If you write a letter of complaint to the NHS trust which provided the A&E service you visited, then you don't need to "demand a response" or give them a timescale to respond: they have a duty to respond within 25 working days (can be extended by agreement).

Write to either the Complaints Manager or the Chief Executive. Have a good think about what exactly it is you're unhappy about and then be explicit in your letter - bullet points are best imo.

PALS are not part of the complaints process but they can be a very good alternative or starting point - it entirely depends on how you want your complaint handling.

Every NHS trust & PCT has a PALS. They can take up your concern on an informal basis - perhaps contact the A&E deparment manager and ask them for feedback in relation to your concern. This will be followed up (the manager could have a quiet chat with the member of staff in question for example) and the PALS will log what you've said in their database.

YOu might be happy enough with this as a response to your concern. If you feel you want to do it formally, then don't bother with PALS; do it by letter instead.

Does this help?

Thanks peanutbutter, that's really helpful.

I've written a letter to the Chief Executive.

I want this nurse to be made aware of the effect her actions had on us.

Hopefully she was just having an 'off day'.

If not, I hope she receives the support or training she needs to be able to do her job properly.

I'd second what peanutbutter said - they have to respond to a letter of complaint.

You may well find that her department know that there's a problem and need something like this to act on .

I work in a hospital. I would never treat a patient or their family like this. You could quite appropriately have called an ambulance for your ds by the sounds of it. The OOH would probably have told you the same.

It's her job whether it's 4am or not. It's her job. Complain!

Sending chocs and thanks is very nice and I'm sure will be much appreciated. Have just written to my local to complain and the reply was so funny in that it "addressed all the points I raised" as they will no doubt say but failed to adequately deal with any of them. SO I expect you'rr get the usual trite response which will leave you wondering why you bothered! Glad ds is better

i wrote a letter of complaint based on a day we had with dd1 when she was due to have surgery - basically an off day, a anaethetist using inappropriate language etc. Sent it to chief executive - dh( works there) and was called to the CEO's office about his wife's letter - was given an apology etc, chief executive ( also consultant) saw her in his private clinic and spoke to staff regarding the matter. Apologised to me when he saw dd1 in private clinic.

There were a number of factors but I wrote on the premise that other parent's may not feel strong enough to speak up and so that it idid not happen again. Rather than go away and bitch about it to all and sundry - say something to the people that can bring about change.

So would urge you to do it. The response we had was very good - admittedly that is here in Aus. Did do it over something with dd1 in the Uk as well - had a very good response and some things were changed in response to my letter.

I have also found as someone else said - do it in a 'I am disappointed' tone rather than angry sort yourselves out tone ( even though that is what you really mean) iyswim.

Well, it's done!

Sent via email, and already had a reply from the PA to the Chief Executive, saying they will look into it and get back to me asap.

Will have to wait and see if anything is done about it.

Thanks for all the advice.