A&E Eastbourne District General Hospital

Thank you for taking the time to leave some feedback about your experience of attending the Emergency Department (ED) at Eastbourne District General Hospital during the Easter bank holiday weekend; we do appreciate it.

The Trust strives to provide a high and responsive standard of care to all patients at what continues to be an extremely busy and challenging time, especially for our ED's, and we are both disappointed and sorry to read of your experience. It must have been a worrying and uncomfortable time for you whilst you waited with the symptoms you described, and we apologise for this.

As you will appreciate, our ED's regularly see high volumes of patients attending for a wide range of illnesses and injuries with varying degrees of urgency that we cannot predict, sometimes in life threatening situations, and regrettably this does impact on waiting times despite our best efforts to keep the patient flow moving as quickly as resources and capacity allow. You will also appreciate that in more recent times, our ED's are seeing an increase in attendances due to patient difficulties accessing primary care and this adds to our ED waiting times. We have recently introduced an eTriage system in our ED's to help patient flow and we hope, in time, this will enhance the care we provide in a timely and appropriate manner.

We very much hope you have now received the care and treatment you require for your ear infection, and are feeling better; please take care and keep well.