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

My partner went to A&E with constipation. By the next morning he was having life saving surgery and went to ICU. He'd had undiagnosed bowel cancer. Ended up with a stoma.
My Mother danced around the bed with the nurse, the day she died. We'd gone through A&E that morning. I could give lots of examples. I came off a 12 hour shift and suddenly couldn't breathe, but picked up in the hospital. The doctor was shocked at my bloods.
When my partner was in and out, over not being diagnosed with his heart issues, I'd get us a meal deal and a few newspapers. He was seriously ill, but laughing and eating. You can't tell by looking at people, as anyone who has visited people in hospices/Marie Currie, will know.

I think people who have no compassion for others and their predicaments should be triaged and turned away at the door.

Part of it is
stulidity part of it is the system. Me and partner had an accident abroad (cost covered all good) and needed nothing but stitches
pulled after. We had to go to a&e despite it being a simple thing. They decided to keep me and take bloods )never found out why, never got results). Put me into day surgery (despite not needing it, but had to wait for hours until finding out they wasted my time). All I wanted was a gp appointment for someone to take out slightly more tricky stitches. While we were there, people showed with paper cuts, shampoo in their eyes and other nonsense wasting people’s time. I never wanted to be there in the first place, took a whole day and if the stitches
had been more straight forward, I’d have taken them
out myself.

Yep, the X-ray department in the children' hospital I worked in had posters up about the dangers of trampolines.

I’ve watched regular Day in A&E on channel 4, non heat wave edition. Like almost all A&Es, roughly 50% of cases, even the most serious, are human error.

Trampolines alone account for quite a lot of A&E visits. Perhaps they should turn away children who use trampolines 🤔

Yep, this.
My best friend's mum was taken by ambulance to A&E recently after having a seizure (and she waited several hours for that). She was sat in the ambulance outside A&E for 5 hours before she got through the door, then spent hours on a trolley in a corridor before she even saw a doctor.

When did waiting in an ambulance for hours outside A&E become normal?

This too. Gaps caused partially by chronic underfunding and ill thought out policies

So are lots of accidents. Lack of thought/care etc. can't just leave them untreated. Very bad idea.

The largest one being gaps in social care meaning that freeing up beds further up the hospital is difficult and more staffing time and bed space is being taken up by patients who need admitting but are still in ED when they shouldn’t be. And the GP crisis.

Do you have any medical background to be suggesting that triage should be more brutal.

Don't blame the individuals, blame the system. Minor injuries centres aren't everywhere and its not necessarily easy to get in. 111 being staffed by non clinical staff means a lot of people sent to a&e who dont need to be there. Its a problem with many complex factors.

No thats what triage is for and they should be more brutal. Problem is nobody can get a GP appt so they turn up in A+E. Solve primary care problem.

I was in A+E with my ex wife and a guy stepped up to the reception and said that he had been their 5 hours and he was ded up waiting so was going home. She asked him what he was waiting to be seen for and he replied "a fly bite on my nose"

Same.
Although one time when I was in the waiting room, a lady approached the desk and I did overhear her say she was there because she could not get a GP appointment. She had niggling ankle pain.
And I expect she then moaned that she spent half the day there before getting seen.

It makes me laugh how many people are sure that half of the patients in A&E don’t need to be there and could have just gone to a pharmacy/taken a paracetamol.

I know whenever I’ve been to A&E I don’t have a clue what other people are there with. I don’t go round interrogating them for their symptoms and pre-existing conditions.

A few months ago I got bitten by my cat . Called my GP to enquire about a tetanus injection to be told that our huge practice doesn’t do them anymore and I’d have to go to A and E ! Felt a total fraud sitting there for 5 hours to be triaged before I could be directed to the minor injuries unit inside A and E where the wait was quite short . Couldn’t understand why I had to be in actual A and E when I was only there for a quick tetanus jab and surely a triage on the door or when I gave the reception the reason I was there would have saved everyone’s time. Was embarrassed sitting in A and E making small talk with genuine emergencies .

The ambulance that took me in didn't equal priority! I still waited for 8 hours with a crp of 294 they discovered after finally taking my blood while I'd been sitting there like a balloon hallucinating!
Everything moved incredibly quickly after that but it was a very long scary wait

And some people are feeling unwell enough that they just can't cope with hours more at A&E and just want to crawl into bed

Paramedics triage on scene and sign post appropriately ( self care, GP, DNs , social care or advised own transport to ED) or transport to ED. If you are being transported to ED in an Emergency Ambulance the chances are you are quite unwell and will be given priority, but you are still triaged at hospital arrival and may well end up sat in the waiting room. If a “drunk or druggie” requires one to one nursing care they too are probably quite unwell and in all probability are not being “dropped off “ by the local plod as they are overwhelmingly busy also.

There doesn’t seem to be any triage now. I accompanied my 94 year old dad who was sent there by ambulance after falling and gashing his head. We waited 9 hours for the cut to be glued, it took less than 3 minutes.
I have a friend who went to A&E with constipation ( she had already had medication from her doctor) instead of sending her away they let her wait. The place is full of people who shouldn’t be at A& E.

I was in a and e in January. I had a nasty rash on my face and felt really unwell so I went to my GP who I managed to see. He told me it was simply a 'viral rash'.
That night my face absolutely ballooned and I struggled to breathe so reluctantly asked dh to call an ambulance- second time in my 60 plus years. Long story short I had a facial cellulitis which was about 10 minutes from being full blown sepsis, was in hospital for 10 days on horrific antibiotics and have had to have some complicated surgery recently caused by it.
I had been to the gp who basically got it wrong and felt silly going to a and e but thank god I did.

This is proof that you never know what has happened behind closed doors, some people become excellent at masking for all different reasons.

one example was an elderly person who had a fractured NOF or neck of femur yet had been walking around for 2weeks since the ‘minor fall’!

August 24 and DH had been going into work with back pain for about a week. DH boss said to another colleague drive him to A & E to get it looked at and I’ll pay you both for the day. DH walked in and said it was back pain which he thought was muscular but as he’d had Cauda Equina once before which ended with a disc being removed and a second one shaved his boss wanted him to get it checked out. I finished work at 1pm that day and saw a message from DH saying phone me when you can and at that point he was in the waiting room waiting on a scan. They called in the on call surgeon at operated at 8pm that night. It was Cauda Equina again and the disc they shaved the first time had split into three pieces. Most people would have assumed it was just muscular and put it off but the doctor said if he had waited another day or two he may not have been walking again. Cases like DH are why they always check just in case what at first appears to be a minor injury isn’t something more serious.

The last time I was in A & E was after falling down a flight of stairs at work head first and landing on my back. The stairs were stone, it was a tiled floor at the bottom and I split my leg open down to the muscle but somehow kept my head off the floor. I also damaged an elbow and wrist in the fall but that is probably what saved my head. It took internal and external stitches to put my leg back together again. DH asked the nurse as he was stitching it together if it would have healed on its own. The nurse said that eventually yes it would have but it would have taken months, looked far messier than it does when healed and stitching it means if properly dressed infection is less likely to get in. My leg is mess but I can still walk so should I not have gone to A & E?

I agree. I was at a dinner last week and another guest had hurt her finger earlier in the day. Small wound, wasn’t bleeding nor in need of stitches.

could have done with a bit of antiseptic cream and a bandaid. She was able to use her utensils as normal.

she intended to go to A & E the next day, and of course there was a mown about the anticipated delay..

Whereas here it’s A&E for anything that can’t be dealt with by your GP.

They are the only two available options, so A&E is the only option for anyone visiting the beach or the likes and ends up with a minor injury.