To love A&E despite the wait?

You are so gaslit to think 9 hours is something you feel grateful for.

This. Our so called ‘free and wonderful NHS” is a myth. It’s an expensive shitstorm. 🙄

It's great you've had such a positive experience but I can't say the same sadly.

My elderly mother has advanced Alzheimer's, osteoporosis and breast cancer. She has had to be taken to A&E twice within the last 8 months. First time was at the end of last summer when she fell and smashed her forehead open and fractured her neck. Despite knowing she had advanced dementia, unable to talk, was in pain, very very confused and disorentated they left us for hours on our own and every medical professional who came to see us was a different person each time, they never read her notes properly and didn't realise each time she had dementia so I had to keep explaining and explaining, after 18 hours she was eventually taken on to a ward which was a complete disaster (but a whole other story).

Second time was in February this year, mum developed an infection of unknown origin. Again same scenario as before, no one reads her notes properly and we had to explain every sodding time that mum couldn't understand what they were saying and can not talk as she is in advanced dementia. This time we had a 36 hour wait on a trolley in a corridor. My elderly father and my sister both contracted norovirus from there so two down it was down to me to deal with alone and it was awful. Every trolley had a very elderly person on, many with dementia and on their own (one from a care home who had come with no one to advocate for her), it was so so depressing.

So I'm sorry to say that I haven't had the same positive experience but then again our local hospital has a poor rating and crap reviews, perhaps yours is more efficiently run?

Where you in A&E for 9 hours in total or did you wait 9 hours to be seen? My mother had a fall, we waited 20 mins for triage where she was give painkillers, another 30 for a doctor to see her and a decision was made to admit after x-ray, ct scan and bloods within 3 hours. Took forever to get her a bed on the ward though. And all also "free" in Ireland.

My MiL won't go to her local hospital in Wales anymore after spending 12hours in a waiting room after a car crash. That was also "free".

Its often quite helpful to ask the practitioner for their name, and a copy of the complaints procedure when in the kind of situation you were, even when you know tgeir bame and how to make a complaint. It can give them pause for thought and allow them to get their brain and mouth back online.

We have a minor injury section at my nearest A&E and also a GP service
Aa well as the emergency department.

The biggest issue is lack of beds due to people not being able to be discharged due to lack of social care so its completely normal in my local a&e to be waiting around 30/40 hours for a bed while sitting in a&e

Glad you got good treatment in A and E. Many people don't and are made worse by waiting 9 hours. The whole system is deeply flawed. There are some great individuals working there.

Developng world conditions?
The NHS has many many faults but its ridiculous to suggest conditions are like the third world.

They didn't wait 9 hours. Her mum was seen, treated abd discharged in 9 hours. Thats very different from waiting for 9 hours to be seen.

I think part of the issue though is the urgent care/OOH system is so patchy. If there was a consistent system across the country I think that would help a lot.

Some people are time wasters, some people don’t know where to go, some are struggling to get a GP appointment. I doubt many people turn up to sit at a and e for the fun of it even if they don’t really need to be there.

We need to get the basics right of access to care through pharmacy and GP and then we will be able to improve everything else. But while that basic layer is failing nothing else can work.

We have had positive experiences of prompt triage and treatment, and on two occasions emergency admission and surgery, but I fully appreciate that many people simply do not have this experience at all.

As we all know, investment is needed in primary care services so that many people simply do not need to go to A&E at all. A new centre has opened near us for just this purpose to take the pressure off the local hospital, and it has a number of diagnostic facilities so that people do not need to be referred onto the main hospital - we need many more places like this.

The public also need to understand that patients are seen based on clinical need, not order of arrival. There will also be patients with diagnosed conditions that mean you jump the queue immediately I.e my cousin has Haemophilia and in our home country he jumps the queue instantly when he arrives with a bleed requiring immediate pain relief. Well, he has lost count of the number of times other people have massively kicked off about it. People need to understand that some who come to A&E do have a greater, or more immediate, need than them.

I agree that having a universal healthcare system is something we need to protect. However, I don’t think that means we should accept lower standards and long waiting times. My experience of A&E was that firstly the waiting area was shockingly dirty and messy and felt more like a police custody facility than a hospital waiting room. The paint was peeling off the walls which had random notices stuck up everywhere. There was a discarded gown with blood on left on the receptionist desk and not one member of staff moved it for 5 hours despite it being in front of them. The receptionists spent hours talking about their holidays, kids etc and barked at anyone who dared come to the desk and ask for help. There were police accompanying prisoners waiting for hours alongside parents with young children and old people just left sitting on hard chairs for hours. The whole place just seemed badly run. I appreciate you cannot see what is happening behind the scenes but there was a lot of walking around, chatting and no action or any kind of empathy towards people who were clearly in pain. So no it’s not good enough and it’s not ‘free’, we all pay into the system and should demand that it is a lot better.

Its all relative. Here in Aus my DD had kidney stones. She was seen, operated on, a stent fitted and sent to the ward in not much more than 9 hours.

I had a massive herniated disc, I was seen in less than 20 mins, sent for CT within an hour and on a ward in three hours with major spinal surgery booked two days later.

Also 'free' (paid for with taxes) at point of care.

My mother on the other hand was left on a trolley in a corridor after a 14hr wait in an ambulance. She crashed and ended up nearly dieing in HDU in an NHS hospital in Wales for a simple urinary tract infection. Had she had access to primary care, this could have been 100% avoidable.

My nephew sat on the floor in A&E with suspected appendicitis for 16hrs.

So no I don't get excited by substandard NHS care, even if the staff are undoubtedly doing their best.

My son collapsed at home 3 years ago i rang 999 and the Ambulance was there within minutes they quickly established he was in DKA ( we had no idea he was diabetic ), he was blue ligted to A&E and straight through to resus and was in critical care within an hour
I couldnt fault thrm
But it was a life threatenig emergency

I will never understand why British eulogise the National Health Service and actually celebrate a 9 hour wait. I mean I know there is the Dunkirk spirit and all that but why do you put up with these kind of developing world conditions? My son, a doctor, nearly fell over laughing when I suggested he might try working in the UK. Just think about who is prepared to work in these conditions.

We have urgent care here too and it works quite well ime

I’m glad it worked for you.

Some of the nurses were okay but there was a communication issue and I was distressed the entire time (ND). Some were loudly chatting about holidays etc in the middle of the night while I was trying to sleep.

The next time the dr wants to call the paramedics to take me there as a matter of urgency, I’m not going. Not risking an overnight stay. Happy to take the consequences but if there is any chance I will have to go through the same experience then I’m out.

To be honest, that’s terrible!

Im in Australia and I’ve never waited more than forty minutes for me or a sick child to be triaged. Then the actual care for the broken bone etc. might take another hour for the xray, cast etc.

We have an urgent care system in NSW which I think really helps. It’s where you go when you are too sick or hurt for a doctor but not quite A&E. Open 24/7. They can do stitches, help with croup, xray and make casts for broken bones, put dehydrated kids on drips for stomach bugs. It keeps A&E free for serious emergencies.

i’m glad you have had a good experience, OP. A GP sent me to A&E in January. I came out of there feeling much worse than when I went in because the Advanced Nurse Practitioner I saw treated me like a neurotic time-waster. She shouted at me and every time I tried to ask her a question, she talked over me and wouldn’t let me get to the end of the sentence. She told me that my symptoms were caused by diabetes. I tried to
tell her that I had had numerous blood tests for diabetes, including very recently, and they were all well within the normal range but she wouldn’t listen and continued to give me advice as if I had diabetes. Luckily, I had the sense to ignore her advice because once my problem was further investigated, I was actually given the opposite advice. If I had followed the nurse’s advice, I would have got worse. The nurse could have found out that I didn’t have diabetes by looking at my records but she didn’t bother and just assumed. No idea why any medical professional would just assume that when it is easily checked with a blood test.

I wrote a complaint to PALS. A few days later the consultant in charge of A&E phoned me and apologised profusely.

The sad thing is, prior to that, I went to the same A&E around summer 2023. I had a very similar experience and again I complained and the consultant in charge apologized. Apologizing is nice but it is not much good if nothing changes. I am actually now fairly scared to go to that A&E. I have no confidence that they would look after me.

Both times I was sent home i bet the staff thought that but the reality is both times they completely missed serious life threatening conditions. The reality is by the time its discovered its different staff so the original staff have no idea about their errors and still walk around thinking the patient is a time waster

This

Yes you are being unreasonable. Firstly to say you “love” A&E? How bizarre. I presume what you are saying is you think the level of service you get “for free” (it isnt) justifies the long wait? Well that complete rubbish. There is no justification for the shockingly long waits in A&E or the general poor state of the NHS in general. It is adequately funded but the shear inefficiency and bad management and bureaucracy result in the shit show we have today.