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

A&E isn't just for life threatening things though.
Last I went for was a suspected broken rib and needed an x-ray.
GP won't give an x-ray, if I'd have gone they'd have told me to go to A&E.
People aren't going to A&E with colds.
It's accident as well as emergency.

Our waiting room is for a&e and urgent care which is ran by a GP service. You get triaged and you either get sent to a separate waiting room for the GP or you stay in A&E.

So not everyone is waiting for A&E.

Echo other comments - it is a mix between people taking the piss and people simply having no other choice because they can’t get a GP appointment for weeks.

There are also some things that may look okay but are not. I know someone went in with a head injury. Had been sick a few times but was otherwise sat up well and fine but turned out he had a bleed.

The problem is the A&E is now a doctors surgery.
We used to be able to turn up at the doctors and wait to be seen, now you have to wait to even get your call answered so there is no where else to go. Plus all the cottage hospitals are gone, so instead of going to somewhere small near by and being treated everyone within a 30min travel radius are all crammed into one waiting room.
So it isn’t getting busier it is that the hospital has a bigger collection catchment.
Stupid isn’t it that if a supermarket gets busier they build more, however hospitals just get bigger.

I don’t know. I had an emphysema in my chest, almost died, but while I was waiting in A&E, I was sitting up chatting to my mum like everything was fine, not moaning in pain or anything, so you might have looked at me and wondered why I was there, but if I’d left it any longer, I would most likely have died!

To be fair, many emergencies will not present outwards. I had a pulmonary embolism last year and was sat quite normally in a and e, had chest pain but outwardly you wouldn't know anything.
I agree that a percentage could be treated at a walkin provision, investment is needed for these to divert numbers away from a and e. Also limiting numbers of people attending with patients to one if needed for care reasons would help the general business of the department.

Do you know how impossible it is to get an appointment in some areas?

my gp sent me to a&e yesterday after a very abnormal ecg- I looked (and felt!) fine but have since been admitted so obviously am not… can’t always tell by looking!

At our A&E in Norwich, on the reception desk a senior doctor does stand there and triage people. It's exactly as you said it should be, and it works brilliantly.

Still, when I went a couple of weeks ago, there was loads of people who were still in the corridor.

I guess because you could have someone who is really quite ill waiting forever while doctor advises on someones corn. Triage is to weed out the important cases and make the rest wait.

IMO you did absolutely right in going to A & E, a ‘lost’ tampon can lead to toxic shock which can be fatal, hence your GP sent you there. Hope you got sorted.

@Horserider5678 I wonder if the two nurses who saw my DP for 'constipation ' include him in their anecdotes. It was bowel cancer and then we got to A&E he was less than 24 hours away from death. He now has a stoma. He'd had inhalers thrown at him previously, he'd been having hear attacks, that's why his breathing was bad. Had one while driving as a taxi driver, it's lucky he didn't kill anyone. I'm on the FB stoma group and people's experiences of being fobbed off are disgusting. My first husband wasn't diagnosed with cancer until seven weeks before his death, again I often wonder if he features in anecdotes. As an ED Nurse, I would have thought that you'd highlight the silent, serious conditions that people can still chat, while needing A&E.

I do agree with you (and often they take the whole family too!) but I also know some things aren’t visible- my DD (17 so had to attend adult a&e) was told to go straight to a&e when she recently had some heart issues. Anyone looking at her though would have thought she didn’t need to be there.

This. Access to GP's now is largely restricted to the elderly, young and chronically ill. If you are outside these categories in some urban areas it can literally be impossible to secure primary healthcare. I don't blame people for getting desperate if they've had a health issue for weeks/months.

I’m an ICU Dr.

There are people who look fine in the waiting room who end up with me on a life support machine. They crash. if they hadn’t turned up when they did, looking ok, I would never have met them. They’d be found dead at home.

There are also people who cannot get to a doctor any other way. ED is the last line for many many things, including the problem of access to doctors.

Don’t let decades of poor management and inadequate funding of public health systems make you turn on other members of the public who need medical care.

There was talk go getting GP practices working weekends and later in the day, but this hasn’t happened, we used to have 2 walk in services near us, 1 burnt down 10 years ago, after finally agreeing to it being rebuilt, it’s in planning stages now. We really need more minor injuries resources and specialist centres for the elderly who end up in A&E as they cannot get to see GP and leave it too late.

Tbf, some of them MAY be there for shits… 🤣

Where do you want emergencies to go in the evening/ on the weekend?

we’ve been to A&E over the years mostly when the GP was closed. if something major happens out of hours (bitten/ grazed by dog, pressure on chest, dislocated wrist, under skin haemorrhage) I call 111 and more often than not they send us 🤷‍♀️ tbh I went straight to A&E for dislocated wrist and haemorrhage but both happened at night/weekend. Otherwise I’d have called the GP with it

and in those cases we’d sit in the A&E looking fairly healthy

These numpties need triaging at the door and turning away (sorry, re signposting) to self care, pharmacy or GP before they even get a chance to sit down.
Can't believe your unit isn't doing that already, most do.

You just can’t tell by looking at someone. I looked absolutely fine (and I didnt even feel that bad!) when I went to a and e last year but I had a strange feeling I had an ectopic pregnancy. I didn’t have any typical symptoms- no pain, no bleeding, dark lines on tests , no shoulder pain nothing except a feeling that something was in my tube and some odd nerve pains down my leg on that side. When they scanned me it was literally about to burst they said I’d got there just in time and they were shocked at my presentation as they only usually see people in a lot of pain by that stage

I've been through A&E a lot. The day my Mother died, she danced around the bed with the nurse. I'd taken her in via A&E hoursbefore.

My DP seemed well the day he'd had his heart attack. When he had constipation he was fobbed off for three days, he was treated terrible in A&E because he seemed well. Twelve hours later he had life saving surgery and was in Intensive Care.
People go in for pain relief. When I used to go to A&E with my partner, we'd take a meal deal. You can't tell by looking at people how well they are.

At my local hospital, they use A&E to give druggies their methadone rather than the local pharmacies. I went last year with a severe ear infection in the middle of the night. It was full of drunks and ghouls wanting their fix. Mixed in with genuine people in need of course. Disgusting.

But some people could be waiting a bloody fortnight to get a doctor appointment. In what world is that kind of timescale acceptable

Of course a suspected fracture needed to be seen in A&E! Why would you think otherwise? It needs an x ray and a cast putting on, so fits the the criteria! So not sure what your comment is about, same with stitches, generally facial stitches are done by plastics to minimise scarring!

Could not agree more.

I was with my kid for suspected broken bone) once (it was and they needed a cast). We were at a paediatric A&E. So there were many kids running around and playing but others are right you can’t judge by eyeballs, so I over heard the conversations between the nurse and parents). The place wasn’t big and the door was left open.

One parent had brought their three year old in because they hadn’t poo’ed in a day. Hadn’t given them more juice, or fibre but brought them straight to A&E.

Another kid running around I overheard their parent on the phone ‘yeah I’m still here I know he’s just had this cough today but it will be days to see a doctor so it’s just easier’. Kid did indeed have a cough and he did cough once or twice for about two seconds in two hours.

Third kid and I quote ‘yeah I think he just has a cold but tonsillitis is going around so I thought that I would check’ .

The abuse of the system is real. I get people can’t see a doctor when they need to but none of these even warranted that. Eve the amount of posts here you read about people going to the doctor for the most minor of things is ridiculous and then they don’t like what the doctor has said (because effectively there isn’t anything wrong) and want further advise is worrying.

When you make something free at the point of use and you add in entitled people etc this is what you get.

I have never been to A&E without these kinds of examples.

I had to go to A&E twice last year with gallbladder issues. Both times I was triaged on arrival. I'm sure if there was nothing much wrong with me, I'd have been sent away at that point rather than asked to wait.
So I don't really see how you can think that most of the people waiting don't need to be there. I can't imagine anyone goes to A&E for the fun of it.