Negligent A & E grrrrr

walkers_dream

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Not the same thing but years of agony only to be told its my posture....turned out i fractured my last vertibre before the pelvis, have a slipped disc, will end up having to have an opperation due to scoliosis and spondylitis there is a longer name for one of my issues but can never remember it. And suffer from siatica on a daily basis.

But even through i am in chronic pain day in and day out they still stick to their word, yet are happy to give me morphine and tramadol to tackle the pain?

sorry but being we put so much money in to it the NHS are pathetic and im going private! ill actually get some where!:mad:
 

burtie

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I broke my fibia after a fall 2 years ago. Initially I got back on and rode home, but was in real pain, then when I took my boot off and saw the amount of bright blue blood pooling around my ankle realised I broken it! Although my initial treatment by the triage nurse was not great, once I got sent on and X-rayed, the treatment was very good, took a long time but then you expect that. All my after care was good too until they came to take the plaster off and didn't actually warm me that all my nerves would have gone too sleep, so I stepped off the bed and promptly fell over!

Overall though I can't complain though and they were very busy whilst I was in the system as the day after my fall we had the big freeze so I was sat in the waiting room with a leg plaster with a room full of broken wrists from people slipping on ice!
 

ClobellsandBaubles

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I think some of it is that hospital staff don't understand the forces involved with riding injuries I mean if you were in a road traffic accident or run over by a bulldozer I am sure more care would be taken (or at least hope).
I do know this is certainly not what docs are trained to do or the correct procedures to follow.
I do know that everyone makes a judgement of how people in certain amount of pain 'should' behave, we all do it, he/shes's just making a fuss it can't be that bad Doctors are just supposed to be much better at making an assessment of someone's condition. Although I know some budding doctors who have definitely not mastered this :rolleyes: and make assumptions on things other than clinical experience or just make assumptions full stop without listening properly.
I do wonder why I am on the path I am sometimes, I have a particular dislike of Orthopaedic surgeons after one told me that I should 'ignore my back pain and give up riding as it was just a twinge' this was after 8 months of not being able to walk for more than a few mins, sit through a uni lecture, or sleep for more than a couple of hours and being on a bucket of painkillers :confused:
 

Jesstickle

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I have to say I have only ever had excellent care from A&E and I've sat there more than a few times in my life.

Which doesn't make your treatment better OP, just thought I'd say it for a bit of balance as I don't like people to bash the NHS constantly without appreciating that when it is working it is a truly wondrous thing! :eek:

ETS: things the NHS have diagnosed promptly and correctly for me

broken wrist x2
dislocated shoulder
broken foot
concussion with hairline fracture of the skull
ruptured ACL

All of them were fixed quickly, efficiently and have never bothered me since. Including my knee which was hard to diagnose and was a total mash up.
 
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Flame_

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Well, when I fractured my pelvis there wasn't any treatment as such other than pain relief anyway. :confused: Same with ribs. They didn't even bother to x-ray my ribs just said, "Yeah, you've probably cracked a couple but as long as you don't have trouble breathing they will just heal themselves". What's the point in doing x-rays and stuff if it doesn't change the treatment?

When my OH needed an emergency back op, A & E picked up on it straight away and had him transfered and sorted within 24 hours. If they hadn't acted so quickly he would have been paralyzed.

I get cross with sitting around for four hours in the middle of the night, etc, like everyone else and things seem to have worsened with all the budget cuts, but for the really important stuff, I think A & E do a great and important job.
 
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Clannad48

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I had to go to A&E on Sunday as I had a hammer to the face - a really stupid accident - I lost a tooth at gum level and my upper lip had a huge split from lip to nose - the hospital were great, really looked after me, arranged for a specialist from the Maxio-facial dept to come down to stich me once he was out of theatre so there will be minimal scarring. Can't praise them enough

On the other hand one of my friends had an injury at the yard - luckily the vet was there looking at one of the horses and she had a more accurate diagnosis from the vet that the hospital and because of what the vet had said managed to get the right treatment.

Perhaps the vet would be better - more expensive but sometimes a lot quicker ;)
 

Rowreach

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My personal experience of A&E (Basingstoke) wasn't at all bad, but they did manage to nearly kill my mother after she had an emergency appendectomy and then got an infection which they completely failed to notice :mad: The day after the op she was fine, the day after that she was totally doolally, hadn't a clue where she was, incontinent etc, and because the "nurse" whose name was above her bed wasn't on the ward, nobody would speak to me about her care, and there was no doctor about either :eek: I ended up ringing her GP and he rang the hospital and gave them hell, and they then started treating her for the infection.

Another time a jockey pal fell in front of me (and brought my horse down) - I watched his horse fall on him and thought "holy **** that's bad" before hitting the deck myself. I got up and walked away, he didn't and was taken to Swindon where they poked and prodded and discharged him - with 4 fractured vertebrae :eek: His wife ended up taking him back to hospital (after they'd gone home to the IoW) in the middle of the night, where they said he should not have been allowed to move at all since being scraped off the course :( He is very lucky he's still walking.

Another friend had a fall out hacking, and was found unconscious by the side of the road. He came round as he was put in the ambulance and taken to hospital, where he was discharged. A mutual friend who happened to be the head physio at the hospital went to see him a few days later, had a quick look at him and got him taken back to hospital there and then. He had fractured cervical vertebrae, and two ops and several years later he is still in intense pain and has limited use and feeling on one side of his body.

And for the worst story? An elderly lady from the village was being driven to town by her daughter. They were hit head on by a new driver who swerved across the road into them. The old lady was taken to hospital and discharged. A day later she took to her bed, complaining of pains. The family rang the hospital and were told to give her painkillers. A day after that she died, punctured lung and ruptured spleen, undiagnosed by the hospital :mad::mad:

It happens all too often for my liking.
 

kerilli

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And for the worst story? An elderly lady from the village was being driven to town by her daughter. They were hit head on by a new driver who swerved across the road into them. The old lady was taken to hospital and discharged. A day later she took to her bed, complaining of pains. The family rang the hospital and were told to give her painkillers. A day after that she died, punctured lung and ruptured spleen, undiagnosed by the hospital :mad::mad:
It happens all too often for my liking.

This almost happened to me when I was a teenager. I had a broken arm (hit by a rider coming the other way) and nobody in A&E took my blood pressure. They put a cast on my arm and tried to send me home, got me as far as the car in a wheelchair (couldn't walk, was all over the place) and at that point my mother had a stand up row with the doctor because I was green in the face, INSISTED that they find me a bed for the night, absolutely refused to take me home as directed. They very begrudgingly found me a bed (as I hadn't been unconscious, they didn't have to.)
In the middle of the night, when I started vomiting, someone finally took my bp... I had lost pints internally, had a ruptured spleen and a punctured lung, had to have a transfusion, spent a few days in intensive care. Didn't need an op, they knew it had healed itself because I wasn't dead, basically. I did get a scan at that point, just to be sure!
A few days later the doctor admitted to my mother that if she'd taken me home as ordered I'd have died in the night, they couldn't have got me back to hospital in time.
As it was I was in hospital for a week, then driven home very carefully (at 20mph!) so spleen wouldn't open again, and had to be on house arrest for a month so nobody could bump me and reopen the tear.
to be fair that was a long time ago and my A&E treatments have been much much better since (triage is now QUICK, it used to take hours!) but there are lots of horror stories. :( :( :(
 

ester

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It does rather make you wonder who on earth is looking at all these x-rays that later are prooved to show fractures etc.

I have always had excellent treatment from A&E, even when they have had every reason not to be nice to me/think I was wasting their time.

My answer to the pain on scale of 1-10 question has always been well everything is relative, as noone has chopped my leg off without anaesthetic I am assuming I have no idea what a 10 is . . . . but it hurts :p.
 

jendie

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It is frightening. I once knew a policeman who had written inside his hat 'NOT to be taken to XXXX Hospital'.

My mum in law was taken to hospital after a fall at home. She was x rayed and sent home with 'bruising'. She found it increasingly difficult to walk and eventually called her own GP who said he wasn't surprised as she had a fractured pelvis!! Her hospital x rayhad been reviewed by the consultant radiologist who found the fracture...but didn't do anything about it. Mum in law is 88 and lives alone.

My husband is a doctor who sometimes attends serious accidents. He and an ambulance team took a patient to A and E but were so appalled at the treatment they saw them receiving that they bundled them up and took them to another hospital.
 

MerrySherryRider

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My answer to the pain on scale of 1-10 question has always been well everything is relative, as noone has chopped my leg off without anaesthetic I am assuming I have no idea what a 10 is . . . . but it hurts :p.

I was taught that a definition of pain is, that it is what the patient says it is.
Doesn't matter what the health care professional thinks the pain should be, pain is unique to each person.

However, when assessing a patient there are other clinical signs which, alongside the degree of pain give a fuller picture for the skilled professional.

I think I know what 10 is, should have listened to the anaesthetist prior to the op.:eek:
 

BlairandAzria

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I went to a&e in a big city, a big university hospital, it was 48 hours since the accident and I suspected I may have chipped my ankle, I was given an x ray however the young doc came over -did not introduce herself and promptly sent me away without even painkillers bear in mind I couldn't weight bear at all on it, it was black and swollen and making an audible cracking noise....well the following day I was incensed and wrote a letter of complaint to the head of a&e and copied in the director general of the whole trust. I got a call from the head of a&e within 3hours. Ultimately I was referred to an orthopaedic surgeon and error after error meant that I finally took the plunge and went privately-well it is shocking how differently you get treated as a private patient-and it really does be no different at all in fact mostly it was in an Nhs hospital! I'm finally, over a year later, going in for surgery privately on Thursday to fix it.

After working in india and America I live the Nhs with a passion? However the service I, and clearly many others receive was and is substandard and it is a disgrace. What is most disgraceful is the fact the receptionist /nurses/doctors treat you with passive aggressive, often rude and poor care, compared to when as a private patient seeing the same people you ate suddenly treated with politeness/ respect/compassion.
 

Lolo

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The trouble is that people do come in and then play down the pain- if it hurts, be specific! I've seen patients who genuinely can't have been feeling 'fine', but are acting all jolly and saying they're a-ok. There was an elderly gentleman who I did an ECG on whose heart was going at 170 bpm and with runs of ventricular ectopics. In a million years he was feeling fine like he said!

Hope your pelvis gets sorted out soon!
 

dawnpetenathshir

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A long time ago a friend where I worked had a bad headache, I fetched her some painkillers from the office, we all went home at closing time and later I heard she had gone to A & E in Mayday Hospital in Croydon asking for help, they gave her more painkillers and sent her home, no tests nothing. Next day she was found in her flat dead from meningitis, her baby & toddler were there with her for many hours crying for their mum before she was found.She was 21.

Oh good Lord :eek:. I had problems at Mayday Hospital when I lived in Croydon. Waited 12 hours for Xray for broken wrist, it was snapped in half.
 

dawnpetenathshir

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I must admit the NHS where I live now are fab. When hubby had his fall last week he had a thorough going over and everyone was really kind. His doctor is great and rings up to find out how his oncology appointments have gone, she is a lovely lady :D
 

rhino

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this thread makes me feel ill :(

Medical negligence is listed as the 5th most common cause of death in the US. I was told a similar statistic for the UK in my Masters (Medical Diagnostics) and although I can't find the reference, I have no reason to doubt it..
 

angel7

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Yes Lola, have had so many folk play down whats wrong with them so they don't get admitted, while the other half play up what is really very minor injuries. Good assessment by triage and Dr should weed them them out though...

I say again each and every instance of these mistakes should be reported to the hospital involved or else nothing will change!!!!

And as for so many fractures being missed or untreated, the consultant radiologist will review all images the next day, purely to look for anything which may have been missed- hence the call back the next day. Many "fractures" are tiny hairlines, well hidden and not treatable- hence being sent home with cracked ribs, broken pelvis (yes rest will heal this!) broken wrists ect. Nothing but Rest, Time and Pain relief will sort out these, something many people refuse to accept as they try to carry on as usual and go to work ect.

Admission to any A and E SHOULD be pretty standard procedure- ABCDEFGHIJ assesment carried out, baseline/ neurological obs taken as a matter of course, history of injury, how sustained, pain assessed and drugs administered as required......


And as for staff being rude or aggressive, please report this too, totally unacceptable- but I suspect they were probably stressed having seen over 150 patients during their 14 hour shift, half of which did not require A and E in the first place and the other half seriously unwell and requiring admission/close monitoring!!
 

Jesstickle

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well, I can happily ( I think) report that my mother went to A&E yesterday saying she thought she had broken a rib and despite not knowing how on earth she did it they x-rayed her straight away. She has!

Big thumbs up for Norfolk and Norwich :)
 

angel7

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Great news Jessstickle

And like all thing horsey you also only hear all the horror stories, never about the ones that were fine.

In each one of these horrible tales, the 100 other people treated in that A and E will be alive and well due to the care they received that day.

Treatment I recieved in US was no better for being private- still had to wait hours in dirty waiting room and cubicles, surrounded by drunks, OD's and gun shot victims...

If I get diagnosed with cancer tommorrow I am glad the NHS will treat me for free and do its best to save me, even prolonging my life with expensive drugs if needed. Those in the US without provision do not have this luxury.
 

YorksG

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A lot of the problems within the system are due to the way the system works, sadly. Nursing has now become a graduate professon, more time in the classroom and not enough on the ward. Junior doctors may be doing their first clinical job in A&E, these days without the level of supervision they used to have. The problems are then compounded by the belief system whch is becoming increasingly prevelant, that young people/newly qualifed people, know more than their more experienced collegues. In the 'good old days' newly qualified doctors would rely on expereinced senior nurses to give them a nudge in the right direction, no longer sadly. I have a friend who is a ward manager of a gynea ward, with 16 years experience of the disciplin, she was told by a junior medic that he knew all he needed to know as he had 11 months experience of gynea and she should do as he told her! She didn't, but did as she felt was right, then spoke to the consultant, who informed the junior that he would have killed the patent had he carried on with his course of action :eek: Goodness only knows what would have happened if the Ward Manager had not been on duty!
 

HarlequinSeren

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Oz, there was a teenage girl who the same thing happened to very recently near me. I didn't know her but I know people who did. So sad :(

My personal experience of a&e has been pretty good. When my dog dropped a huge rock on my foot they were great, x-rayed it (not fractured though it was swollen and black!), but there was a serious staff shortage that night as there had been a couple of major accidents that most of the doctors were taken up with. Totally understandable though.

When I broke my wrist they were also great, I was seen very quickly and x-rayed straight away.
 

Anglebracket

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A few years ago I was admitted to hospital with a ruptured appendix (diagnosis made by A&E doctor). I was admitted on Wednesday afternoon; yet I was not operated on until Saturday night. Various things went wrong. I was transferred to the ear nose and throat ward. This meant that I was not seen by my doctors during their ward round. I was nil by mouth during my stay and hydrated via a drip. The drip came out one morning and it was not put back in till late that night. I was given so many pain killers by the nurses that it was difficult to answer any questions about pain. I ended up refusing to take them.

By the time I was finally operated on I had severe secondary infections. The operation took twice as long as anticipated. A nurse who was present during my op asked me why I hadn’t come to the hospital sooner. When I told him that I was admitted on Wednesday he just looked at me, turned around and walked away. After my operation I was very weak, could not keep any food down, and had to take very strong antibiotics and anti-nausea medication.

The doctors who were treating me did not volunteer any information about my operation. They only told me about the secondary infections after I specifically asked them whether there had been any.
 

Luci07

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I have just been lucky then.... Mind you I normally managed to have head injuries so rushed throughout various A & E departments! But seriously, courtesy of my horses I have spent a lot of time in hospital but have always been well cared for.
 

Lolo

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well, I can happily ( I think) report that my mother went to A&E yesterday saying she thought she had broken a rib and despite not knowing how on earth she did it they x-rayed her straight away. She has!

Big thumbs up for Norfolk and Norwich :)

:D It's a decent hospital I reckon they were brilliant with my sister despite her being totally mental (smushed collar bone, refused to be cut out of her XC colours...).
 

olop

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Working in the NHS myself the posts I am reading really do not surprise me.
It seems teh NHS is all about money these days, long gone are the "patient care policies" they seem to think they strive to.
Everyone I know rants about how bad a service it is & it sounds like it is getting worse.
I have paid for private treatment in the past because of such shocking treatment on the NHS & the difference is amazing, if I had the money I would go private everytime.
I am all for privatising the NHS & paying for treatment, that way at least I can gauruntee that the treatment I get is second for none & I know that I am not paying for all the scrongers out there.
 

Chestnutmare

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Don't laugh but I.............. Fell over a speed bump, was in agony so went to A&E was checked over, X-rayed and nothing wrong, given pain killers
After a few weeks still couldnt walk so got revered back to Hosp and turned out had broken ankle, diagnosed from my previous x-ray. Grrrr......
N&F

Really sorry but I PMSL at this ^^^^^ twas the speed bump bit lol... sorry though that it gave you a broken ankle.. thats not so nice :(
 

ozpoz

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Working in the NHS myself the posts I am reading really do not surprise me.
It seems teh NHS is all about money these days, long gone are the "patient care policies" they seem to think they strive to.
Everyone I know rants about how bad a service it is & it sounds like it is getting worse.
I have paid for private treatment in the past because of such shocking treatment on the NHS & the difference is amazing, if I had the money I would go private everytime.
I am all for privatising the NHS & paying for treatment, that way at least I can gauruntee that the treatment I get is second for none & I know that I am not paying for all the scrongers out there.

That 'll be all of us 'scrongers' who have paid our contributions and taxes for years to support our healthcare system, then ?

:eek:
 

Stinkbomb

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I had a horse related inury that resulted in me dislocating my knee. I managed to put it back myself before going to hospital, because i was in the middle of a field, with no phone, couldnt walk and couldnt stay there all night! . Once at A and E i was told there was noway ive dislocated my knee ( yes i did, if youve ever seen a knee in that position thats normal then ??? ) and that i was being silly it was just bruised. Sent home in pain. Several months later in agony and repeatedly having my knee cap pop out of place ( which they STILL would not believe at hospital and doctors ) i paid to have a private scan...... Id snapped my ACL in my knee in half!!
THEN they decided i could have an operation to sort it!! only 5 months later!!
 
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