Share review of Sunderland Royal Hospital

Sunderland Royal Hospital 2017-06-03 Person 0 5 0

On Thursday 1st June, early evening, I rang 111 to ask for advice following bleeding after a cervical loop excision I had two weeks ago. The nurse on the phone booked me in to Houghton Urgent Care Centre which I attended, and the paramedic who saw me there referred me to Sunderland Royal A+E. Having only attended one A+E department before this visit I was, unfortunately, extremely unhappy with the facilities and lack of care. I am certain the nurses and doctors are incredibly overstretched and this could explain my experience with the latter. Firstly, the A+E facilities were dire - we arrived in a tiny room to be greeted by a receptionist behind a large screen. As we approached this room, there was a cardboard bucket of vomit left on the corridor floor (this was left for the 20 minutes we were there and possibly longer before we arrived). Another patient arrived who was clearly in excruciating pain only to have to spend ten minutes going through paperwork with the receptionist (I understand this needs to be done however I would like to have thought that if someone was in this much pain the response would be urgent). I then went through to another room where the nurse took my blood pressure etc - this was fine. However, this nurse then took me and my husband through to the main A+E waiting room where, I have to say, I was appalled at the facilities. In this room, there were beds partitioned off with curtains - we could hear every single assessment of the patients that were there/bloods being taken/examinations/etc. As mine was a delicate matter, I was extremely anxious and worried about this. I decided to wait in the main corridor - again, the rooms off this corridor were all open, equipment everywhere, extremely chaotic. After 2 hours I still hadn't been seen and was quite distressed with the situation so I decided to ignore the advice of the 111 team and urgent care centre team and leave Sunderland Royal A+E department. On this request, the nurse gave me some advice (to keep an eye on things, etc). One or two patients that were there, in my opinion, were very much wasting the time of the nurse and doctor (a small split lip following a drug-overdosed fight for example) - I understand everyone has to be seen but when assessment time is being wasted by the patient (in this case asking for directions to a street he wanted to be in and asking for a note to be written so he could get time off work), doctors should be able to feel like they can be firmer to be able to move on to other patients, without feeling they may be reprimanded. I do believe the staff are not to blame in this case - the facilities and lack of being able to care for patients in an appropriate, empathetic and dignified way was my main concern. After going through the appropriate pathways of 111 and a walk in centre, I would say that I would not be taking advice to attend Sunderland Royal A+E in the future.