Let’s Applaud our NHS

We all know the NHS is overstretched, we hear constantly about long waiting lists for surgery or appointments and stories of people waiting hours for ambulances etc. I know all of this to be true as I and my family have experienced this too. Last week we had a really positive experience with our NHS.

My son James is 28 years old, has Wolf Hirschhorn Syndrome, he is non verbal with a severe learning disability and is also autistic. He unfortunately had a fall whilst out in the community with his day service. He went down hard on his knee, the result of which was that we had to pay a visit to the A&E dept of our local hospital.

James is normally very active and fully ambulant. He was quite obviously in a lot of pain and unable to walk. Thankfully we still have his old wheelchair we used to use years ago when we were out in busy places.

We arrived at A&E.

On checking in we were asked some basic details about James and what had happened. I could see that the dept was very busy indeed and was anticipating a very long wait so I was pleasantly surprised when we were asked to go out of this dept and go along to the Emergency Care Unit where they would apparently be expecting us.

They were indeed expecting us and we were where shown where to sit when only minutes later we were called through. Two staff introduced themselves to James and they took a few more details. From that moment we arrived the treatment James received was exemplary. Staff were clearly very busy and we moved around from the waiting area to the x-ray dept and then to a cubicle.

Whilst waiting in the cubicle James preferred to have the curtains open. He’s a real people watcher and he could see the nurses station and lots of people coming and going. He enjoyed watching them and blowing kisses to them all as they passed by, often stopping to chat to us.

Unfortunately, James has a fractured patella.

We were required to go back to hospital the following day for further x-rays and to discuss treatment options. The orthopaedic consultant rang me personally that morning to arrange this and told me where we should go.

On arrival at the very busy fracture clinic we were immediately shown to a small room to wait where we were told it would be quieter and more comfortable for us. We did have a wait for the x-rays that day as you might expect but throughout, our interactions with staff were nothing but positive.

The road to recovery for James is not going to be a quick one and several more hospital visits will be required, possibly still even surgery. Whatever shortcomings there are currently in the NHS we are extremely grateful for the treatment and kindness shown to us by its staff.