"Suicidal and left for hours"

Dear indiazh76,

I am sorry to hear of your difficult experience. We endeavour to see people as quickly as possible when they present to the Emergency Department and certainly within an hour during daytime hours if we can. Without detail I am unable to comment on the specifics of your case but the issues that can lead to delay in being seen include:

A delay in triage if the ED is busy – we rely on the ED staff to let us know when someone presents If there a number of service users already being seen by mental health staff, those presenting in the ED will need to wait A lack of appropriate space in which to see service users – you will be aware of the ongoing work in the ED to create a little more space At night we have an on call doctor who works across the mental health unit as well as the ED, and they may be caught up with an admission / urgent need on the ward

I hope this helps understand how this works. Thank you for your feedback, again sorry that you had a difficult experience on this occasion. We will certainly continue to keep reviewing our systems.

Kind Regards,

Dr Elizabeth Gethins