Patient feedback about the Emergency department at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, July 2024
Staff are routinely praised by patients for the care they try to provide in an environment that, for many, is not considered to be fit for purpose. ED is often referred to as the Accident & Emergency Department (A&E).
The table in our report includes a mixture of individual stories, concerns, compliments and questions about the ED. In several cases, the examples highlight the external pressures on our local ED. For example, people who attend ED for urgent care or treatment whilst they are waiting to be seen following a referral (this relates to long waiting lists in Sussex for first appointments) and patients attending ED as they are unable to get a GP appointment.
Healthwatch routinely monitors what is happening at the ED and we share our feedback with University Hospitals Sussex Trust, NHS Sussex (our Integrated Care Board) and the Care Quality Commission to support their ongoing improvement programmes of work. UHSx always captures our feedback from our Enter and View visits and use these to try to make changes. You can learn more about our Enter and View visits by clicking here.
This patient feedback builds on our most recent Enter and View of the ED in March 2024 when two of our trained volunteer lay assessors visited the Department to report on the environment. You can read more about our visit by clicking here.
I was appalled at the conditions in the Major’s part of A&E and very concerned about what would happen in the event of someone needing resuscitation or if there was a fire because of the severe overcrowding …trolleys stacked alongside touching each other with no way of staff getting to the patients without manoeuvring other trolleys in and out again
