"My son's treatment"

My son unfortunately had an accident at football and an ambulance attended to him who had then taken him to St John’s A&E. However, he was directly referred to Edinburgh Royal as his injury was going to require surgical intervention. This is where I believe his lack of care started.

The ambulance crew were amazing with him and provided him with gas & air and a sub cut morphine to help his pain.

When he attended A&E he was given a leg x-ray, where it was evident he had broken his left Fibula and it was noted his ankle was globally swollen, given a moon boot by a member of staff and was told that his fracture was on a non weight bearing bone therefore could walk with the moon boot.

My son is a teenager, and every time a member of staff was talking to him his parents were asked to leave the room -  however, the United Nations right of the child states that all children under the age of 18 have the right to have their parents present at all times whilst in the hospital environment.

Now given this hospital was out of our area, he was advised to go home with his moon boot on and mobilise and present at his local A&E in 2 weeks' time, we had to then ask for crutches for him as these were not going to be provided due to him being in immense pain.

Now fast forward to a week later, he is still in a great amount of pain, completely unable to weight bear, therefore sought advice and presented at our local A&E 1 week before the 2 week time my son was advised by Edinburgh Royal A&E, where I was asked why I had waited so long to get him seen. I explained that we were actually told to present in 2 weeks' time or contact the local fracture clinic to arrange follow up.

Upon this visit he was given another x-ray and we were then told he required emergency surgery and was then put on the emergency trauma list for theatre to fix his broken ankle and leg. This should not have happened so late after his break had happened and I am extremely unhappy about how my son was treated at Edinburgh Royal.

My son has now undergone emergency surgery from NHS Lanarkshire and has had screws and a plate inserted and is now completely non weight bearing for 6 weeks and has a long road to full recovery. NHS Lanarkshire had stated that they could not find any notes on their system from Edinburgh Royal however, they did manage to find his X-ray.

I believe my son has been totally neglected by Edinburgh Royal and has had to suffer for a week in pain and then undergo emergency surgery to fix his broken bones which could have all been dealt with originally on the day his accident happened, luckily I made the decision to go to our local A&E a week earlier than advised otherwise my son would have been left in a lot of pain for a longer period of time.

Also to being told his break was on a non weight bearing bone and he could mobilise with a moon boot on to actually having to have had surgery. how was this missed in Edinburgh? My son has been put through unnecessary pain and could have actually done himself more damage if he did mobilise in his moon boot, which he didn’t as he could not bear the pain when trying to put weight on his foot.