According to this checker on the BBC Hillingdon Hospital is right down the bottom of A&E waiting times:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25055444

You'll need to put in a suitable local postcode that identifies Hillingdon

Having been an escort to Hillingdon's A&E, known as the 'Racetrack', quite a lot in the last 4 years I'm not surprised.

Whilst I know they have to be careful with peoples lives and health I was appalled to see that most of the time I was there the doctors all seemed to be sat in the centre island doing very little but chatting with each other or leaning back staring into space.
During this time almost all the cubicles were occupied with relatives looking out from behind the curtains towards the centre island for some action.

Certainly some time & motion in there wouldn't go amiss, certainly far from the bustling A&E's you see on the TV when the cameras are around.

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Lets be careful out there !

Wow. Sounds bad.

There may very well be a reason for the apparent inaction but it was every time I was there.

The minor injuries clinic which is behind A&E isn't much better, disorganised chaos and very little patient information.

The only saving grace in both departments was that when you do get some attention the treatment was first class, it was just the annoying wait which seemed to be avoidable.

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Lets be careful out there !

I can't speak for the A & E facility there but I never really recovered from my last encounter with Hillingdon Hospital for majory surgery back in February 2006. I don't think it was the surgery per-se, more to do with what happened very shortly afterwards.


: Post edited by Moley, it was February 2006, not 2005.

My Mrs also had some dreadful aftercare in Hillingdon. Over the years she's been in quite a few wards and most of them were OK. The one where she was particularly badly treated was Kennedy in 2011, right at the top.

They ignored her bell presses and then moaned when she wet the bed. Even though she had just had major spinal surgery they expected her to climb on a high bed with broken electrics with 2 mattresses because the bed base was also broken.

When she was discharged they sent her off to the newly opened discharge suite with no time to dress so she was in a public area in night clothes.

They then tried to send her home without the bath board and raised toilet seat that was vital.

I complained and all I got was a short note of apology.

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Lets be careful out there !

^^^ Sorry to hear that Kremmen but it doesn't suprise me.

I had a major spinal operation at Hillingdon Hospital in February 2006 ( I have edited my earlier post where I got the year wrong ).

Just 3 days after the operation I was moved to Mount Vernon Hospital. I will never forget it. It was freezing cold and snowing at the time. I was wheeled down on my bed to the ramp at the front of the hospital wearing just a hospital gown and the bog standard thin blanket to cover me. I was kept waiting outside for ages while they tried to locate an ambulance to do the transfer.

There were none available, so I was put in the back of an ordinary estate car with the back seats folded flat. The pain I felt on that journey was ( thankfully ? ) enough to make me pass out after a mile or so.

Arrived at Mt Vernon, the boiler there had broken down and there was no heating and no hot water for several days. I contracted pneumonia and was put on 10 minute watch. Friends and family who visited me in the following 2 weeks all said I wasn't expected to live. I was unconscious much of that time.

When I did eventually recover from the pneumonia I was discharged to my flat ( I live alone )with no back up support at all, other than a district nurse changing my TED socks twice a week. Thankfully I had a friend who was able to accomodate me, and just as well because it was 6 weeks before I could even walk more than a few steps.

Sorry to bore you all with the details, but it still wrankles with me that what could have possibly been a successful operation fell to **** when the 9 hour operation was over. The aftercare was appalling/non-existant.

End result, at the grand old age of 58 I am written off and fighting the benefit system to try and continue with some kind of life.

Apologies again for my ramblings, and if the site admin feel it's innapropriate please feel free to delete it.

It's not rambling to me because my Mrs went through the wars with Hillingdon and Mount Vernon but by the sounds of it not as bad as you. I still reckon that her sciatica was brought on by an initial cock-up at Mount Vernon where she was discharged in error, and to the horror of the consultant surgeon, because of a 'similar name' mixup that we only found out about some time later.

Before she was released she had no sciatica, just post-op back pain. Within a few hours of getting home via a normal passenger car with not particularly kind suspension the sciatica came on full blast. She was taken to Hillingdon Hospital A&E within a few hours by ambulance as at that time she/we had no idea what was wrong and why her legs were 'on fire'.

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Lets be careful out there !

This all sounds very grim.

If it works for you then that's good but under some circumstances hospital wards can be very cruel places and the views portrayed are in reality far from the truth in some circumstances.

I think the problem tends to be the reduction in proper, caring trained nurses and the proliferation of the cheaper 'assistants' they now employ who often don't care.

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Lets be careful out there !

I think it was about 2002. I had visited my GP on the Friday evening with severe abdominal and kidney pain, and unable to pass urine. My GP sent me to Hillingdon A & E with a covering letter requesting that I receive immediate and urgent attention.

On arrival at A & E I was seen by the triage nurse and placed upon a trolley in the A & E circus, where a femaly nurse and a male medic gave me an initial examination. I was left on that trolley and told that I would be attended to in due coarse. I don't know how long I lay on that trolley waiting for attention, but I do remember the pain. The hours seemed to drag by, and eventually the nurse that had first attended to me came past my trolley and expressed shock horror that I was still there. It turned out that this nurse had completed the shift that she was on when I first saw her, and later returned for another shift. I have no idea how long that was. This kind nurse took immediate compassion on me and arranged for an injection of morphine to kill the pain. She also made it her business to arrange for a doctor to attend to me ASAP. A doctor eventually arrived and I was admitted to a ward for immediate temporary treatment. At a later date I had to return to the hospital for surgery on my bladder. That one week in hospital has put me off wanting go into an NHS hospital ever again.