ABSTRACT
In May 2010, Michael Darnley was assaulted; hit on the head. Later, he felt unwell and was taken to hospital by a friend. The receptionist at the Emergency Department (ED) in the hospital told Mr Darnley and his friend that they would have to wait up to 4 or 5 hours to be seen. During litigation, the trial judge found as a fact that had the patient been told from the outset that he would have been seen by a triage nurse within 30 minutes, he would have stayed in the ED, and would have been seen and would have been told to wait for treatment. Plainly, misinformation will have its most potent effect in the context of patients presenting with a rapidly deteriorating clinical situation. Any clinical service with a ‘walk-in’ element may potentially encounter patients whose untreated condition may cause them harm if they are inadvertently deterred from seeing clinicians.
