King George Hospital 2024-04-22 Person 2 5 0

After dialing 111 I was told to go to A&E. I was redirected by the security guard to the main entrance for an assessment. It appeared that the Dr hadn't recieved the details of my referral from 111 as during my initial assessment I was somewhat dismissively told "you're young, we're going to give you a painkiller and send you home". I had to inform the Dr that I was here with a possible cerebro spinal fluid leak following a recent lumbar puncture, after which she changed her tone and said I should take my notes and wait in A&E. I spent a total of 10 hours waiting through the night. I was called in for tests but wasn't updated, was just sent back out to the waiting room. I was starting to think I'd been forgotten about altogether when I was finally called in again after 6:00am to be admitted. During testing I was treated with great care by the medical professionals, but I had no idea what was happening as I waited throughout the night.

I wish I could have been better informed of waiting times. I was waiting alone and unable to sit up for 10 hours due to the pain I was in and had genuinely started to think that I'd been forgotten about or that my notes hadn't been transferred during a shift change.