To think 70% of people shouldn’t be in A&E

Last yeat I was in a&e over the course of three days. It was when the euros were on. Before kick off for an England match a&e cleared. You cant be that ill if you can put it off to watch the footy!

I was in A and E for the second time the week before last, before being admitted into hospital and you're right! All the "I fell last week and I think I've knocked my elbow, it hurts" and 'I slept funny the night before last and now my neck hurts" type people are clogging up the system.
But as someone said in the beginning, when you can't get into your doctors or they don't have the right equipment, what are people supposed to do? I was actually sent straight down to A and E by my GP, who I was actually, for once, lucky to get an appointment with. But I'm never usually that lucky. It sounds like all GP surgeries have gone downhill these days.

You're not a doctor, so YABU. Unless you have X-Ray vision?

Maybe they were family and friends waiting to hear about a loved one?

Someone can have cancer and look perfectly fine.

Yes, there are timewasters aplenty, but they will be dealt with accordingly by the professionals.

My dd spent most of her latter teens in hospital with countless admissions for Anorexia and suicide attempts. Given the clothes she hid it with you’d have never guessed at times. I think patients need to focus on themselves.

Six weeks ago I suffered a knee injury and couldn't walk.
In the waiting room I was able to chat and joke with my son, but I still couldn't walk. Ended up first in a wheelchair, then crutches for two weeks, then a stick for four weeks.
Obviously if someone in agony and danger of dying was there, Id expect them to be seen first, but should I have not been there because I could chat and joke?

If you call 111, they will organise a GP appointment at a clinic in your town and if all the slots are full they send youvto A&E. Also, most of us aren't medically trained. It's hard to know what is and isn't an emergency. I had a quinsy on my tonsils once. I didn't realise, just thought it was a sore throat. I went to the pharmacist and he sold me day and night nurse. But I should have been in A& E. You would not have thought I was ill either.

I am really sorry that happened to your poor son. It is so important to listen to everyone on the team.

We all know that:

• There was probably a fair chunk of people in A&E that had urgent but not life-threatening ailments that could have been treated elsewhere
• The large majority of those people probably tried to get treated elsewhere and couldn't
• A&E was probably their last choice but they had no other choice

I'm tired of people blaming the patients for going to A&E. If the NHS had sufficient non-emergency services I bet you the A&Es would be half as busy.

What are those people meant to do though? The patients are not the problem.

My son sometimes needs an ambulance ride for his asthma.

The steroids they use in the ambulance make him act really hyper, so often I am then sat waiting with a child who is acting like he's been necking haribo and has just been told his going to Disney. When in reality he's actually still very ill and needs monitoring.

He's my placid child as well, so it's always quite confusing!

I walked into A&E, sat in a chair and probably looked normal. Within 10 mi utes i was told they had a bed for me in resus.

Agree but A&E seems to have merged with “out of hours” the last couple of times I’ve needed it. I’m sat in an A&E waiting room waiting for antibiotics. Well aware that I shouldn’t be there but it’s where I’ve been sent by 111 - absolute shambles the whole thing

Interesting take.

I had an ambulance call out due to a severe asthma attack a couple of years ago.

I was getting progressively worse, so my partner called an ambulance. I received nebulisers on the ambulance. I was told that the paramedics got there just in time as my stats were very low. I wasn’t able to speak, walk or lift my arms etc.

By the time we had reached the hospital, my condition stabilised and I felt better in myself. I was checked into A&E and I felt guilty just sitting in the waiting room when I felt fine in myself (because obviously I had already received treatment in the ambulance etc.)

If you had saw me waiting in A&E, you’d never know the state I was in before I received that treatment on the ambulance. Maybe people waiting there wondered why I was there too. Who knows?

The paramedics saved my life, but I needed to be seen by a doctor and received the appropriate medication. I had an asthma review the next day and had a repeat prescription for preventative and rescue inhalers etc.

I haven’t read the entire thread yet, but I suspect there were many waiting in A&E with similar stories to me.

There is nothing I'm the world that could make me sit in A and E unless absolutely necessary.

Visited an a+e in a major U.K. city, a paramedic checked at the door why you were there, so some gate keeping in operation and it was still very busy. Whilst there triaged and referred elsewhere. Instead of getting an appointment elsewhere, we were sent to queue - we were triaged a further 2 times and waited another 4 hours. We went through why we were there and all allergies and medical history 3 times, before finally seeing someone who gave treatment that could have been given at the first place. It was a DIY eye injury and we ended up with drops. Defo A+E as couldn’t open eyes when we first presented. It’s not joined up at all and the right skill set is not deployed at the right time. It’s a mess

When money for services are cut, it just makes people act really petty about other people using services that they might actually need. People are often forced to go because they can't see their doctor, or they have been advised to do so because there is no service for them. Also, do you know there wasn't an out of hours clinic there? Once I got sent to one on a Sunday for a bladder infection. That was in the hospital.

Also, once during lockdown I had a massive infection in my tooth, one side of my face was swollen. I needed antibiotics, but when I rang the emergency dentist line, the person on the phone refused to give me any because the infection was not yet affecting my vision. I wasn't going to spend another night with a raging face infection. The advice on the NHS website is to go to a&e if you can't get a dentist. Blame the system, not the people using the service.

I was in A& E 5 years ago. I was giggling, pacing and restless, I was fit and tanned and looked very well indeed. I'd seen my GP about sudden onset balance issues and he was concerned about my agitated demeanour and sent me to hospital. I was in for 3 weeks with bacterial meningitis and acute cerrebella ataxia. I must certainly have looked like I shouldn't be in that waiting room!

I was told by a GP I had bad wind, when I actually had an appendicitis! I sat reading my kindle in A&E while waiting to be seen, so to a certain type of person I shouldn’t have wasted A&E time.

Be that as it may, it would really help those of us with severe but invisible conditions (I have Myasthenia Gravis) or those who are just stoic, if you would acknowledge that op is wrong to think they can look around a waiting room and know who is sick enough for A&E and who isn't.

where should people go if they cannot access primary care?

You will be also appalled to know that my child which was not involved in an accident, did not have a limp hanging off and was not in pain needed an admission and spent almost 2 months as an inpatient. How do you know by looking around who will need care and who doesn't?

A&E dr of 25+ years here

There are definitely plenty of people who could be managed in GP but the issue is services are so stretched that people give up and decide the best option is to camp out in A&E.

They all get seen eventually, or sometimes streamed to primary care (we have GPs in A&E too so at certain times of day people will get to see a GP).

The issue is we can’t deal with a lot of chronic conditions/ medication changes a we’ve no way of following people up. I can totally see why people decide to come to us even though our waiting room is like a war zone!

I was one of those people who didn’t look ill enough to be in a&e 3 weeks ago!
Thought I had a viral infection or bad cold coming on as I woke up one day feeling whole body aches, then vomiting every time I stood up or had a couple of sips of water. Thought it was vertigo! I wasn’t getting better after 3 days so I phoned my gp at 8am, who have a system were you can request a call back if you’re quite far back in the queue. Got a phone call at 8.30am asking what was wrong, explained my symptoms, the receptionist then puts it all into the computer and you get triaged by doctors. Phone call back at 9am telling me to come in at 10.10am. I was referred to a&e because in the gp’s words the way I was presenting, pulse rate of 160, 90% oxygen levels and a high temperature. I can say now I thought I’d just be given antibiotics and be done with because I really didn’t feel that ill or have any breathlessness, didn’t imagine for a minute I’d need to be going to a&e.
After being called in to triage I was put straight onto oxygen, had an ecg, blood tests done straight away! After about 20 mins i was taken to the a&e ward where I was given iv antibiotics plus oral at the same time, put onto iv fluids, had an xray plus another scan afterward. Ended up being admitted and was in hospital
for a week on iv antibiotics oxygen and fluids for 5 days plus at ct scan. I had quite bad pneumonia. The doctor who had seen me in a&e came to see me 2 days before I got discharged and said himself considering how ill I was I looked quite well on the surface when he seen me.
That was very long sorry but just saying even though people might not look
ill enough to be in a&e, sometimes they are like me.

Like others have said it’s very hard for some people to get an appointment at their doctors. To get an appointment at my doctors I have to give at least 3 months notice that I plan to be unwell. 😂

Also from just looking at people you can’t always see what is wrong with them.

In the last year I have had to go to A&E twice. Both times I looked healthy talking and laughing with nurses etc but once I was seen by a doctor I then had to have a procedure done really quickly as it was an emergency situation, others in the waiting room probably thought I wasn’t an emergency and could have waited when in fact it was the total opposite.

Yeah, that insurance guy I was talking to I mentioned also said that in their existing models, post code is the most important variable for longevity models.

It's really really frustrating.

So true. But let me give you an almost identical example, with a very different outcome, which highlights, I think, why it CAN work.

DH had what had started out as a blackhead or somethign on his back. It kept getting bigger and we'd attempt to get rid of it or leave it or whatever. Eventually, it got very big,r ed, swollen and sore (this is over MONTHS/years). We conteacted the GP via our online portal, with photos. He received a note to say the GP would like him to see a specialist (dermatologist I think) and it was scheduled for the dermatology clinic adjacent to our GP practice within the next week or two. She looked at it and explained to him that her view ws that it would most likely need to be removed but she would like him to take antibiotics first to see. She gave him information on how, if after the antibiotics it was not better completely (her expectation) he could contact the clinic directly to book an appointment for surgical removal.

He took the antibiotics. As it turned out, it has miraculously disappeared completely and so he has NOT booked the appointment.

If it can wor in my little corner of surrey, why can't it work elsewhere? I'm sorry for your hideous experience. It should not be like that.

This is another problem with the NHS. Complete lack of foresight (and resources).

If they would spend some money to sort things like this they would actually save money in the long run.

Same for consultants - if people didn’t spend so much time on a waiting list they would get sicker and sicker and end up in A and E.