6.30pm Arrive at A&E, check-in with reception. Get called ‘Erin’

6.35pm Wait in waiting area. Bright lights, hard chairs and no heat.

6.45pm Taken in with ill party (close family member) to see nurse. A few questions and a urine sample. Nurse explains that surgery cannot be done at this hospital, but we could see doc for a diagnosis.

6.50pm Return to waiting room.

7.00pm Notice the screen warning of two and a half hour waits, send Alex and Erin home.

7.30pm Notice screen advising health benefits of a good diet. Look around and see vending machine stuffed with chocolate and crisps and a second offering a selection of carbonated drinks, nobody seems to have noticed the irony.

8.00pm A mother with an ill daughter requests a cup of water, I notice that there’s no water available in the waiting room.

8.10pm Went to the toilet.

8.30pm Wonder how long it’s going to be.

9.00pm Try and figure out where we are in the queue, we think we’re after ‘arm lady’ but before ‘broken ankle’.

9.15pm Begin to lose the will to live.

9.35pm We are called, nobody talks but we are delivered to a cubicle.

9.40pm We wait, we wonder if we’ll ever be seen. We wonder how many docs are on call.

10.00pm A young girl appears, perhaps 24 or 25 she was wearing green scrubs one arm hole ripped to the shoulder. She asked the usual questions and then told us that there were no surgeons at this hospital, that we couldn’t have a scan and really there wasn’t much she could do.

10.02pm I politely asked the child doctor why if they were unable to do anything had we been kept waiting (and wasting their time) for so long when family member was in so much pain. The child doctor went red and snapped “she’s being seen isn’t she” I left it there, ok I actually gave her ‘The Look’ and wondered if I was supposed to be grateful. The NHS is ‘free’ at the point of service but the last time I checked we’re still paying for it and I therefore have a right to say my piece, no?

10.15pm Child doctor decides to take blood and leaves family member pumping hand. For for the second time she leaves the room for equipment (the first time for cloth for the bed). I couldn’t help thinking that they’d be a lot more efficient if they had some of these things ready. She reappears and says “what have you got for me”, myself and family member look at each other blankly “what have you got for me?”. By that time I had plenty for her, most of which would have seen child doctor and I sitting in A&E. I kept my thoughts (and fists) to myself.

10.20pm Child doctor announces she’s off to get painkillers, even though family member just said she already has co-codamol. We checked if all was clear and left before child doctor returned.