I spoke to John and said I'd take him to the minor injuries department in the small hospital a couple of miles away - I looked in the website and they treat soft tissue injuries and minor fractures and have an xray department and it would save us going to the always busy A&E at Stafford hospital. He'd just got out of a meeting and said most people were drifting off home early seeing as it was the night out so he'd come with us, just give him half an hour.
We took Joe to minor injuries, checked him in and was told there was an hour's wait. After 15 minutes John noticed a sign on the wall stating that the Xray department is currently closed
so we checked him out and took him over to Stafford. It was packed! I stood for 10 minutes waiting to check him in and then we sat - the screen estimated the wait was 4+ hours. Something must've gone off at the prison as there were a couple of prisoners there, handcuffed to the officers, and we later saw one at xray. Within minutes we were called in to see the triage nurse, she recommended getting it xrayed so we went back to wait for a doctor to see him. 10 minutes later the doctor called him in, she examined it and gave us a form for the xray department. A short walk to there, a 3 minute wait and then he was called in for those to be done. 10 minutes later we were back at A&E and the doctor was waiting for us, she looked at his xrays and there were thankfully no broken bones. A nurse strapped it up for him and we were on our way, less than an hour after arriving!
Initially it was only supposed to be a temporary measure for a few months whilst they filled the positions but a year on, the overnight closure is still in effect.
