Wrexham Maelor Hospital 2018-11-07 Person 1 5 0

My elderly Grandmother attended Wrexham Maelor Emergency Department following a fall on Monday night. It was obvious that she had sustained a fracture to her wrist and was seen quickly by the triage nurse. She was given two paracetamol and told the wait to see a doctor was long. Never did we imagine that she would have been left sat on a chair in the corridor for 9 hours before an X-ray was performed and a temporary cast applied - with which she felt instant relief from the pain she was suffering. The Consulatnt in the fracture clinic clearly stated that this injury should not have been left as it was for the length of time it had. My Grandma was also suffering from pneumonia and had been on a course of antibiotics - she was absolutely not well enough to be left sat in a chair for this amount of time in pain. When the nurses were questioned about the wait we were only told - ‘there is nothing we can do’ ‘there are no beds’ and ‘this is the way it is’. The situation never seemed to be escalated and my family were not kept updated. Very little care and compassion was shown by the staff and we were made to feel like we were being difficult when showing concern for the situation. Not even a blanket or hot drink was offered to her during this time. We fully appreciate how busy the department is but just cannot understand how this is acceptable. We stated at the time of admission we would have been happy to take her home to bed if her wrist could have been immobilised and would have brought her back to the fracture clinic the next day - we were told this was not an option as she needed to see a doctor, this however, is not true as the staff felt it was appropriate to leave her 9 hours before this was done. Surely this situation could have been dealt with more efficiently meaning the experience for my Grandma was a lot less traumatic and less patients waiting in the department unnecessarily.