To say stop moaning about A&E

Oh yeah, and last time I was there, people were sleeping on the floor - including a pregnant woman.

I will moan all i want. I had to go to a and e 2 years ago as i couldn't put any weight on my right leg after i fell when getting out of the shower. I was treated like a nuisance. I was told off for not going to the minor injuries unit even though it was shut. It was like i was meant to remain on the bathroom floor all night. I was offered no pain relief even though i was screaming in pain. I was fobbed off and i was told that there was nothing wrong. It actually turned out that i had an acl injury.

I had a long wait when I had a stone stuck in my bile duct. I was jaundiced and in agony, i couldn’t sit so lay on the floor. Then when I was given IV pain relief in the waiting room I had to share the drip stand with another patient.

My treatment was lacking dignity but mild in comparison to some others.

I agree with this.
Every time there is a thread criticising the NHS, there is a pile-on shouting down critics.
Being busy and underpaid (not that I think NHS are underpaid, but the rhetoric won't go away) is an excuse for treating people appallingly apparently.
Only in the NHS apparently though. People would not put up with similar treatment anywhere else, but for some reason NHS staff get a free pass.
The NHS is a sacred cow.

^This.

Your one good experience doesn’t negate (many) other people’s dreadful experiences.

I dislocate my shoulder about 3 times a year. I pop it back myself - look at your son taking up unnecessary A&E time with his little none emergency dislocation. Jokes. To a point.

A&E at our local hospital is abysmal. As are some of the staff. Particularly management.

I’m glad you had a good experience but yabu to say stop moaning, some people have awful horrific experiences, I have been in that situation, some people die and their relatives have to deal with not only the loss but the stress of what happened and the lack of care. People should talk about these things and it’s an important discussion to have instead of making the nhs some sacred thing you cant talk bad about.

No, I was seen by A&E triage. I was there and I know who I was seeing thanks. The minor injuries team aren’t available in the evenings.
I’ve no idea what the comment about alcohol is in reference to. I didn’t mention it.

Eh? I said I was grateful to the NHs staff. Read it again.

Likewise had my MIL survived, we'd have been telling her she was "lucky" to have ONLY spent 48 hours on a trolley in an A&E corridor after being blue lighted there with double pneumonia. Unfortunately, she didn't survive the third world hell hole masquerading as A&E and died before they finally got around to giving her any antibiotics - they didn't actually give her anything - she was completely ignored, our family had to stay with her to take her to the loo, provide food and drink, etc. Nurses kept coming every few hours to take "obs" but just constantly fobbed us off when we asked how long she'd be there or when treatment would start. Given that appalling experience, we'll moan if we want to moan!

A dislocation is an urgent injury.

Swathes of the UK have no access to a minor injuries unit or an urgent care unit and only have an A&E. Not everywhere has multiple options to get help, especially out of hours.

Here we can't get an xray if we arrive even a minute after 1pm at our local minor inquiries unit.

I’m so sorry that you went through that. Honestly OP is so entitled thinking ‘well I had a good experience so everyone else must have’

people have different experiences. And not all are good.

By the same token the OP is telling others not to moan when she has no idea of what others who have had bad experiences which is more rude and out of order.

We have usually had good experiences with A&E when it was for minor issues such asbreaks, fractures and concussions and to be fair I don't mind the wait because there are patients with more urgent issues.

However recently we were the patient with the far more urgent issue and unfortunately on this occasion they massively dropped the ball with devasting consequences. A complaint is being compiled to ensure that the matter is addressed and appropriate retraining given so that noone else will have to go through what we did. So no, please don't tell me to stop moaning about A&E.

The staff are usually great but we can still call out the NHS as being an utter shit show. My dad spent 9 hours waiting to be seen and yes it was an emergency due to a burst blood vessel.

you had a great experience. Send some cookies to the staff to say thank you and stop calling out the rest of us. You do you.

My dh sat in an A&E corridor after being triaged (as lowest category) for 9 hours.
When a doctor finally got to him, they banged an antibiotic drip up straight away.
He spent 9 days in hospital whilst they hit his sepsis with 4 different antibiotics a day. He was gravely ill.

So yeah, I will criticise A&E but moreso the people who rock up there because they can't get a GP appointment.

You were very lucky @Darkcarpark that your son was seen quickly for a non life threatening injury 🙄

Ah I'll tell my friend to stop moaning about her recent A&E trip where her child was forgotten about, waited to even be triaged for 5 hours before she dared speak up, to then discover her child was quite literally deathly ill - that was three weeks ago and she's still in HDU now

Or maybe I'll stop moaning about the experience my daughter just had, where because "it wasn't broken" they ignored all the major warning signs and my daughter nearly lost her foot due to compartmental syndrome - which I only returned to A-E for because two separate paramedics told me my daughter was having a medical emergency - one only saw photos of her foot to know that.

Or maybe I'll stop moaning about the time they sent my other daughter away with "it's just a bit of bruising" when she couldn't weight bare, there was swelling and instant bruising and the second opinion we sought confirmed (after doing the standard things like x-rays which our local refused to do) that not only was there a break; she'd ripped her Achilles tendon.

Do not come and tell people not to moan. The NHS is fallible, some staff are rubbish, and if we don't highlight this, there is even less chance of change than we already have. We don't need to be rude to staff or anything, but we absolutely can and should talk about our experiences

Ill tell this to my friend who went to A&E yesterday at 6pm and is still there, not having been seen (6 AM the following day). How dare she moan!

Was in A&E with my mum, 85 with stage 4 cancer until 3am the other day and I wondered whether the experience would kill her. It damned nearly killed me at the time. The staff were good but if there were enough of them we could have been in and out of there in an hour. I'll moan all I fucking well like.

Lucky you. I went to an and e with chest pain and a suspected blood clot on the lung post surgery. It look an hour before they even triaged me

This is exactly it. I was there recently with my son with a broken bone and there was a child with constipation, a person with a sore throat and a child that slipped in the playground. All sorts of other very minor issues ( after 7 hours you get to know a lot).

People love the drama of an a&e trip and also this is another example of the lack of resilience now.

A&E should only be If you are potentially dying, critically ill or you've damaged a bit that is beyond repair without medical intervention.

I went in with a fast AF, as a new symptom of my heart problem, ambulanced in as they were not happy to leave me home (I had tried to fix it with more beta blocker, didn't work but a good attempt anyway)...

Cutting a very long story short - I was left sat in my own piss, for almost 18 hours on an unsuitable surface (wheelchair user, needs pressure relieving seating/mattress - which they had, but in stores the other side of the site and no one on with the key), no assistance to toilet, no suitable food (diabetic, nothing appropriate and nothing with the carbs/sugar content listed), having a hypo with no way of getting help from a side room (still in A&E!) with no way to reach a call bell (not sure there even was one).

Ignored several times by nurses too busy discussing weddings and shopping, so the fact I had not had meds they thought I had had didn't register for hours, by which point the relevant cardiologist and pharmacist had gone home...

Finally after no one called my partner, he eventually showed up, to find me having a massive hypo, still sat in my own piss, and he brought my chair so after he found me some sugar (in my bag but helpfully placed where I couldn't get it!!) I could self discharge and collect my meds the following day.

The pressure sores I got from that took near 6 months to heal.

I won't be going again unless its 'you're going to die in the next five minutes unless you go' situation (which to be fair they didn't know wasn't the case last time).

Last time my sister ended up there (following heart surgery at another hospital), she was given the wrong meds, by a Dr who had absolutely not understood her immediate history or medication schedule - who then argued that he was right with her and two other drs and it took a WEEK to fix his errors, he's bloody lucky (as is she) he didn't kill her. He had to have it explained twice, the second time with her flashing her 'zipper' at him before he grasped she HAD had open heart surgery recently, he first assumed she was still waiting for it, then that she'd had it years ago! I don't think English was even his fifth or sixth language and reading comprehension non-existant + sleep deprivation and totally inadequate supervision.

I was very lucky when I took my 3 yo in recently too and we were seen immediately. But that doesn’t mean everyone has the same experience.

Sounds like you were seen by the minor injuries team rather than A+E.

Those that drink alcohol and have injuries are no less worthy of care! And are not the issue. The issue is that there are no beds for those who require an admission so they sit in A+E and there is no space to seen anyone else. Then those oeoooe waiting on admission get sicker and require regular medications etc so new patients can’t be Treated. It’s a capacity issue.

I’m currently in A&E with my 80yo mum. She fell earlier this evening and we suspect a broken wrist. Arrived just after 10pm and finally got triaged at 00:30am. Had an X-ray and now waiting for results and next steps.

The people who work here are amazing. They have to put up with a lot of abuse and demands and I certainly couldn’t do it. They are all working as best they can with a massive workload.

The system isn’t perfect but I’m not wanting to complain as the staff are enduring a stressful job and doing their best.