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Emergency department experience

Posted By lyrasx89

"Emergency department experience"

About: Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital (Wonford) / Accident and emergency

(as a service user),

Very long wait to be seen due to the usual pressures on the health service, which needs to be more widely known.

The screen that should tell the public how long approximately the wait is was broken, so all the patients had to keep asking the member of staff on reception, which they seemed to find annoying.

I asked the member of staff on reception if they could turn the screen on to stop people asking them, they said it’s broken, I don’t know, nobody tells me anything.

Several people in the waiting room didn't appear to be very ill (coughs and sneezes), waited several hours, and when they heard the wait was currently 7 hours decided to go home.

It would have been helpful for us all to be able to clearly see what the waits were, so that people could have made their own decisions and this would ease pressure on the stretched ED resources.

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Responses

Response from Michelle Ann Cruel, Clinical Nurse Manager - Emergency Department (Eastern Services), Emergency Department - RD&E (Eastern Services), Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust last month
We are preparing to make a change
Michelle Ann Cruel
Clinical Nurse Manager - Emergency Department (Eastern Services), Emergency Department - RD&E (Eastern Services),
Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 04/03/2025 at 23:12
Published on Care Opinion on 05/03/2025 at 08:14

picture of Michelle Ann Cruel

Dear lyrasx89,

Thank you for your feedback.

I am sorry to hear that you had long wait in the department.

You are right in saying that it would have been helpful if the patients and their relatives in the waiting room are made aware of the wait time, whether through our prompt screen or through verbal announcement. Information on wait times can definitely assist people in deciding which NHS resources to access in regard to their present condition.

I will raise a ticket for our monitors to be checked to ensure that they are working, I will also add a reminder to our safety brief and senior nursing team handovers for the ED nurse in charge to make an update announcement for people in the waiting area especially if longer wait time is predicted.

We appreciate your understanding and concern not only to improve our service but also to protect the resources we have left.

Kind regards,

Mitch Cruel

Clinical Nurse Manager

Emergency Department

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