Share review of Scunthorpe General Hospital

Scunthorpe General Hospital 2021-07-03 Person 1 5 0

I appreciate that our A&E departments are extremely busy at the moment, but I quite honestly, was terrified during my recent visit! I felt as if I was in a cattle market as one of the animals, herded in and pulled out of my ‘pen’ to be triaged, then back out into the marketplace. The registered nurse, who I had my first conversation with, did my ‘obs and was fully prepared to accept that my temperature was 35.1! Considering that a body temperature of 35 degrees or below constitutes an medical emergency according to the NHS itself, and the reason for my attendance was a two day history of a temperature of 38 degrees and above, concerned me to say the least. When I questioned the validity of this reading, I was assured that the piece of equipment had been recently calibrated, and the nurse did not express any concern about my ‘hypothermia’. I was thus returned to my holding pen and after hearing a man at the reception desk ask if his wife would be seen soon, as they had been waiting for seven and a half hours, I decided to take my chances with my GP and left the department without being seen by a doctor. Many of the other attendees were not wearing masks and there was no opportunity to wipe down the chairs prior to sitting. I understand that our Health Service is seriously under-staffed and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption, but this is beyond all reason. I have been a registered nurse for over 40 years and found the whole experience traumatic and shocking. We absolutely would not even treat our beloved pets like this, never mind our beloved families. How can we, as a society, accept that this is even slightly ‘ok’? Appalled and very sad to see our great NHS in such a mess.

There should have been a member of staff at the entrance to the department to greet, and direct the patients to the reception area along with a brief explanation of the procedures and precautions being taken. An indication of the anticipated waiting time would also have helped. Regular updates from the staff regarding reasons for delays or changes in waiting times would reduce the stress of just sitting and wondering what was happening. Maybe during the triage procedure, an explanation could be given about how the level of urgency given to each patient will affect the timing of their treatment. I considered myself to be neither an accident nor an emergency. There seems to be no interim level between not being able to get a GP appointment, and attending an already swamped A&E department with a non urgent problem.