"Excessive wait times and facility appearance"

Recently, my siblings and myself attended A&E with our parent as they were directed to attend by their physician. As their physician appointment was at 9.30 we did not arrive until 10pm.

Whilst we appreciate it was a busy night with the ambulance bay at capacity, the wait time to be attended to was, I believe, 6 hours. My parent is an elderly person and had to sit in the waiting area this entire time. The observations made during this time are as follows:

1. I felt the waiting area is dirty and had paper cups on the floor and sandwich containers on seats

2. Psychiatric patients were in the same waiting area

3. Patient was directed to provide a urine sample in front of waiting patients

4. A patient that I believe was vomiting was left in the waiting area directly behind us, I believe this patient should have been moved to another area

5. Patients baggage was on the floor in the walking area a tripping hazard

6. The outside area of A&E had cigarette buts and was dirty

7. The triage nurse explained to several patients that being brought to A&E by ambulance were not attended to first, this was not the case in my opinion, as we observed all patients brought by ambulance were processed first

8. I believe 2 patients opted not to wait after a few hours and left

9. After being seen by a doctor 6 hours after arrival my parent was informed that they would require a CT scan and it would be about an hour. 6 hours and 17 mins later my parent was taken for a CT scan.

The patient charter displayed in the waiting area states that patient dignity is important to your organisation, I felt this was not evident on the night we were there.

The wait time displayed were, in my opinion, nowhere near estimated times.

I felt the entire A&E area is dirty and at the very least needs tidying up, walls washed and painted.