"Poor service & communication "

Phoned 111 and was told urgent care centre can deal with a cast needing to be removed due to severe swelling. Upon arriving at the hospital and going urgent care centre we waited 3 hours to be told they don’t have the equipment to remove the cast and sent us back to urgent care centre to have the cast removed.

When back in urgent care centre I asked the nurse why she sent us A&E and wasted 3 hours of ours and the A&E staffs time , she proceeded to tell me she sent us to A&E because the patient was in pain.

This was ridiculous , surely the reason anyone comes to A&E or urgent care is because they are in pain.

On arrival we clearly explained all we needed was the cast to be removed , 111 had advised this. I’m unsure as to whether the nurse knew what should be done in this situation , this poor justification for their decision led to the patient being in pain unnecessarily for 3 extra hours & also the A&E staffs time being wasted when it could have been used on someone else.

Service was very poor with no urgency.