Forth Valley Royal Hospital

My boyfriend had sudden back pain which was severe. He could hardly walk or talk from the pain. Owing to the severity, we called a taxi to the Larbert Accident and Emergency. As we waited, there was a general atmosphere of being dissatisfied by the long wait time and lack of communication from staff whilst patients waited.
My boyfriend had gone to the toilet when his name was called. I explained, but the staff member insisted on calling another patient’s name immediately after. Annoyingly, it was a matter of seconds till my boyfriend returned. It wasn’t long till my boyfriend’s name was called again. We felt lucky because we had waited a relatively short time. However, he was in for minutes; the doctor had refused to look at him because it was back pain and they do not consider this an emergency. Surely, this is not a case of black and white, and there are cases when back pain is, one: severe, and two: a symptom of something more serious underlying.
We’d paid £18 in taxi fares, and were sent away to the Stirling Minor Injury Unit for an appointment later that evening. We walked a mile to Larbert train station as we couldn’t afford another taxi regardless of how much pain my boyfriend was in. To add to the confusion there’s a sign in the Minor Injury Unit which states that they do NOT treat back pain. The doctor there assessed my boyfriend’s ears, stomach and back after apologising; she assumed that they would have already done this all quickly at Larbert. This wasn’t the case. — My boyfriend was only told there was nothing he could do for them.
I think there definitely needs to be clearer guidelines as to which unit is appropriate for your circumstances. At the moment, the information currently available has the risk of getting you in a right pickle. And I can’t think of much worse than being in a pickle when you’re feeling poorly.