I visited my local hospital for blood tests, unfortunately because of my reluctant veins, they had problems. In a nutshell she found a vein but because it spurted she grasped the needle to hold it in! As a consequence of this she stuck the needle into herself, but also at the same time stuck the needle back into me!! A great deal of panic ensued and I was asked in a public area, if I had a risk of HIV and my drug taking habits etc. I was not amused at this but sort of understood. I was told Occupational Health would ring me, but could not be told when this was happened, the fact that I had been pricked by the same person was not even considered. I did go to PALS and said that maybe they should have some sort of procedure and leaflet to explain to those involved what the procedure should be. I was told that I may well have to go back and have tests for HIV etc, which was quite upsetting and asked why they couldn’t have been taken at the same time. I was told I needed to consent to these being taken, although it turned out consent wasn’t taken and they just took them out of the existing tests. I never had any follow up from this and was concerned about these tests being on my records and was never told what would happen to the results. Much of the problems I see with the health service is poor communication, especially not understanding how the patient feels. I do feel that the health service is generally very good but there is a lack of understanding how to deal with things going wrong.