Enter and View: United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust (ULHT) - Accident and Emergency Departments/Mystery Shopping report
Download (PDF 653.97 KB)Summary of report content
Healthwatch Lincolnshire undertook a mystery shopping approach to Enter and View visits to three hospital emergency departments in January and February 2023.
They looked at the following aspects:
- Person centred care
- Arrival and reception at A&E, including signage
- Car parking
- Staff
- Food and drink
- Environment and cleanliness
- Patient comfort
Patients are waiting a long time for treatment and this varies across the three sites.
Information is not updated on information boards regularly for patients and their carers.
There is confusion amongst the public about what is treated at an Accident and Emergency (A+E) Centre and an Urgent Treatment Centre.
Those patients that had “talked before they walked” and made contact with NHS111, were often referred to the A+E Department when they could have been seen in the UTC.
Post COVID-19 and generalised pressures on access to appointments at Primary Care: many people are presenting at A+E due to lack of appointments at Primary Care Level (via a GP Practice) and this is forcing a number of patients to attend the UTC / A+E Department where they know that they will have to wait on average more than 3 hours to be assessed by a clinician but they will be treated.
The report contains a number of general recommendations and responses from each hospital.