St Bartholomew's Hospital 2021-07-02 Person 1 5 0

Although when we saw staff they were polite and professional, the time waiting without any indication of where we were in the scheme of things was unbearable. It was not clear who we should ask. The actual time spent with staff during a 5 1/2 hour visit was about an hour which included 3 lots of personal care and distribution of refreshments. Whilst we appreciate it was an A&E dept and there may have been more urgent cases, my mother-in-law is 98 ad was attending under extreme protest because an X-ray was deemed necessary. As she has been bed-bound since her last visit to Whipps (a 12-hour travesty of ‘care’), we were obliged to wait for hospital transport (2 hours) and she was returned to her care home at 13.30pm. As far as I am aware there is no other way to access treatments so elderly patients are continually subjected to this scenario. Surely we can do better for our elderly? Otherwise we might as well bump them off.

Information - who to speak to, an idea of a patient’s position in the queue, a better-organised transport system, a better understanding of how elderly and sick people feel being pushed around in chairs or uncomfortable stretchers when every bump and knock is painful. The construction of the hospital is not conducive to comfort either - numerous bumps on the way in and out for ambulances to negotiate, bumps on the pedestrian route to a cubicle, lack of automatic doors (which are only just wide enough), cubicles not large enough for easy transfer of stretcher cases from ambulance stretcher to hospital bed, or for 2 staff to carry out personal care