To say stop moaning about A&E

I'm genuinely glad for you and your son, OP, but I'm struggling a bit to bite my tongue here. I spent Christmas haemorrhaging in A&E with a late miscarriage of twins and wasn't seen for 6 hours. All they could do was offer me adult nappies and apologies as I was bleeding through my clothes onto the floor and they couldn't get hold of anyone who could see me. When I was finally seen I was operated on with no anaesthetic due to the urgency. Was that the system working as it should, or where did I go wrong under your logic?

Lucky you. Your experience doesn’t undermine everyone else’s.

I’ve only ever had good experiences with A&E too. Everytime I’ve been seen very quickly, like you they have been in real genuine emergencies/accidents.

On my last visit, I was seen promptly in the AM but then I was hanging around until the evening time when they finally found a ward space for me. Which from reading some of the comments is still good time.

We've always generally had good experiences. We have a dc who is very accident prone. Broken limbs and various injuries. Always seen fairly quickly.
I was taken for a suspected blood clot on lung during pregnancy. I was on a trolley on a corridor for 7 hours. There were beds being taken by drunks who had been in a fight with security between 3 of them. Using resources.
Plus one lady who was having a mh crisis. I really felt for her. They were ringing to get her taken to a secure unit with no luck so she was stuck there.
But overall we've been fairly lucky .

Sadly you sound sanctimonious.

And people should remember to complain to the government instead of the NHS, as it’s the chronic underfunding of the NHS by the government that have left it in this state

I had a reasonably short wait in A&E once.

All the other times, they kept me waiting for endless hours in uncomfortable conditions, messed about my medication, they've been rude, been snappy, outright lied about test results, physically injured me... I can go on.

Ah I will pass your instruction onto my grandmother. She was in A and E on a trolley for 3 days with sepsis before she was finally admitted. I will tell her she should not have moaned about it, even though the trolley was incredibly uncomfortable and she almost died in a corridor.

DH had a fractured and dislocated shoulder last year. Took 2 hours to get an xray and another 1.5 after thay to get any pain relief. One nurse told him to stop making a fuss when they trying to reset it as he passed out with the pain.

I think with issues like dislocations, broken bones, clean cuts etc treatment can be fast. The issue with long waits is where an inpatient bed is required, or further tests, or if the reason for the symptoms is unknown.

No clinician wants long waits to occur. Some emergencies are more simple than others to treat, but that doesn’t mean the emergencies that require a long wait are less urgent or less of an emergency, if that makes sense!

Your headline says stop moaning about it. Once a fortnight I had literally no sleep for a year because of a&e systems. I work! It was an impossible way of living. The people were great yes. But the a&e system was terrible for me.

@Darkcarpark Why would we stop moaning? You have been saying that you had a genuine accident/emergency.

My mum was in a corridor in A&E after a stroke for 22 hours. Previous incident, also a suspected stroke, was 18 hours.

Does that not count as an emergency for you?

I have seen amazing staff do amazing work but they haven't got enough support.

And I think it's perfectly reasonable to complain about some of the experiences people are having in A&E.

If that was really true you could contact the hospital you went to and send them a compliment via PALS.

I’m so sorry about your mum. No one should be dying on a trolley in a corridor.

You absolutely are. You’re telling people to stop moaning with no thought as to why they might feel the need to moan or that they weren’t as lucky as you despite going to a&e for far more life threatening things than a dislocated shoulder.

You’ve been given numerous examples explaining why your thread is tone deaf and an opportunity to wind your neck in but you’re doubling down. Embarrassing for you.

Right, everyone in the UK who's had a bad experience at A&E or lost a loved one due to the shocking waiting times should stop moaning because @Darkcarpark had a good experience 😂😂

This whole thread is so weird OP, I'm calling troll

Isn't everything "suspected" when you enter a+e? They don't know until you've been tested, x-rayed etc.

Just because you've had one good experience, it doesn't invalidate everyone else's experiences. Lovely for your son, that he was seen so quickly despite no threat to life. That isn't the reality for many

And it’s this apathy that keeps things shit. Why should we just put up and shut up?

My penultimate interaction with A&E was when they sent my adult DC2 away after diagnosing them with a UTI. They ended up having an urgent appendectomy just over 24 hours later, with their operation being delayed by two more urgent cases at 12.30am and 2.30am. I’m not grateful that the ‘doctor’ who saw them initially didn’t check their bloods and neither was that surgeon who admitted them for the surgery.