To think some things should just be turned away from A&E?

This.

I agree, but I’d also argue that my DD didn’t need to be there (and wait 13 hours) if the GP, or even a nurse at the surgery could’ve quickly dipped her sample and sent a prescription over to the pharmacy.

That was in response to @PUGMEISTER21 btw

So, clearly an expert in ED triage and treatment

Ridiculous statement, utterly ignorant

I would have happily munched on a take away yesterday after being sent in to a&e by my GP. I had to make do with DH dropping off some sandwiches. I sat quietly and read my book etc

I was admitted to high observation ward and am still here waiting for various test results. Still happily eating meals. People are in a and e for all sorts of different reasons, not all of them are going to mean they don't feel like eating

How does eating a takeaway mean they do not need to be there?
Not everyone in A&E is nauseous.

People admitted on the wards also order and eat takeaways. Does that also mean they should not be there?

To be honest, it’s often the GPs that are sending people to A&E with trivial stuff. My DD had a bad UTI, and was given antibiotics which didn’t clear it. She went to the pharmacy for more antibiotics and they couldn’t prescribe another course. She rang her GP for an appointment and they couldn’t fit her in that day (Friday) so told her to go to A&E. It’s ridiculous.

From my own experience, minors do not treat self harm as it is mental health related. I was sent to A&E because they have a mental health team there. Minors do not.

But the key to all this is the triage. Put that triage at the GP rather than at A&E, because that's the cause of many of these problems, that people can't get the GP appointments in a timely manner, so their only alternative is the hospital route.

Glad I could help. What qualifications do you have? 😂

Oh god this was priceless and I’m so glad I was here for it.

If they need stiches they can go to minor injuries or A and E. Otherwise, they don't ned to be in MIU or ED.

Our hospital has a minor injuries attached to filter this out so it's already happening.

If you think about it, large amounts of NHS resources are used for people who are there through stupidity, risk-taking behaviour, or just failing to look after themselves - e.g people with problems relating to weight, alcohol, drugs etc,, unintended pregnancies, people who do dangerous sports, people who've gone swimming and got into difficulties, people who have ignored obvious symptoms till they became serious, people who just haven't taken sensible precautions for their own safety, If we start putting everyone in those categories into some sort of a low priority category, we'll have a country full of people unable to work because they're waiting for basic health care.

There are and always have been cases in A/E that don’t need to be there, it’s the triage that needs to improve and the ability to say you need something but not this, the reality though is, if you turn up at a/e you will inevitably be seen at some point

I used to be a microbiologist in the NHS working Pathology for 9 years with a degree in Biomedical sciencem let me know if that works for you

Agree. What about people who self harm? They are literally doing it to themselves? Should they be left to bleed?

I know a woman who goes to ED at the drop of a hat, literally every time her kids have a minor injury. She must've been 10 times in the last 18 months. There's never been anything seriously wrong but she always wants them check out just in case.

Most recently her daughter hurt her foot dancing so the Mum wanted her x-rayed, went to the local MIU to find out they now don't do walk-ins and they offered her an appointment which was later that day but inconvenient as they were going out that evening so she drove to the next town to go to ED straight away, waited a few hours, got seen and sent home with a diagnosis of soft-tissue injury and she then spent days complaining about the NHS not being convenient enough for her when she didn't need to use MIU or ED in the first place.

I was ready to agree but burns probably is an A and E. It would probably be a minor injuries unit if there was one but not many people think to do that. I don’t think people should be turned away because they did something silly as a lot of accidents would have been caused that way. However I do think people should be turned away who come in and say ‘I’ve had this cough for 2 weeks and it’s not going away’ which I’ve very much heard someone say when I was there.

I got sent to Miu from ED, they didn't have facilities to test me properly, subsequently developed sepsis and GP sent me to admissions after 2 visits where I spent 3 weeks in hospital..

Because someone looks ok, doesn't mean they are.

On 3/4/2026 I went to A&E as I was in agony and couldn’t urinate due to a 1.8cm kidney stone which had caused my kidney to swell up. Spent all night sitting in A&E and after around 14 hours I was admitted for surgery and had a double J stent placed in my urethra. They couldn’t remove the stone as I had an infection and was at risk of sepsis, so I am due to go back and have surgery to remove the stent and kidney stone and have a new temporary stent placed in again. I was booked in for surgery on Friday 10/7/2026, over 3 months after having the stent placed inside the urethra. I spent all day in the day case surgery unit, wearing the surgery gown and at sometime after 5pm I was told the surgery was cancelled as they had ran out of time. During that afternoon the fire alarm had gone off at the hospital and I spent more than an hour in a distressed state due to having flashbacks from the time I was in a house fire (9 years ago, when my husband ran in to a burning building and saved my life by carrying my unconscious body in his arms and jumping out of the upstairs window, but we both ended up in ICU as we both suffered injuries when we hit the ground - he had a brain haemorrhage and he died from sepsis caught in ICU).

They said I will just have to go back in on another day and have stent replaced, as well as removing the stone, but they have no idea how hard it is for me to go to hospital and seek treatment, as I have severe anxiety, PTSD, mental health issues (and other health problems including Epilspsy). Maybe it’s just because I’m autistic, but I have to mentally prepare myself for leaving the house and I dont go to the hospital unless I am in agony.

The therapist I used to see took a load of time off to look after her teen daughter who had her face literally kicked off by her own horse. She had tons of surgery.
Horses scare me anyway. My aunt had them, and one went past me, and kicked her back leg out inches from my face.

I think trampolines have to be sold with the big guard things around them now, because kids were launching themselves off them. I don't know the figures, but I wonder if A&E admissions for trampoline related injuries has gone down since then.

They are so fucking dangerous! It’s absolutely wild. There was a doctor doing his little “personal sharing for human interest” bit on one of those shows and he said his daughters were never getting a trampoline or going horseback riding (it was an episode where a girl got a hole kicked through her leg while horseback riding)