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

My local hospital has A&E, and an urgent treatment centre (which is only open 7am-10pm).
You have to access either departments through the same door, and it turns out we do have a triage person on the door (Clinical Navigator) who will signpost you to the right place.
I did not know about this as my last visit was via ambulance. I just had a look on their website.

@ifallinlove you are aware that some places don't have separate minor injury units? Where I live we have A&E and then you are triaged into minors and majors dependent on issue.

YABU btw. Many injuries and illnesses that arrive in a&e are probably self inflicted in some way. One of daughter’s then teenage friends got so drunk she needed hospital treatment. Entirely self inflicted (apart from the idiot who bought her the vodka and god knows what else). The alternative to the good people of a&e pumping her stomach or whatever they did for her, was to leave her unconscious in the park to possibly die. But she did it to herself so…

The biggest hospital near me has minor injuries inside a&e. You are triaged in a&e and they decide if you go to minor injuries. There is another minor injuries unit a couple of towns over but they’re only open 9am-3:30pm Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays and is appointment only.

Not my point; the pp used sport as a reason for self inflicted injuries. The cost to benefit ratio. I was just stating it's possible to keep fit without being competitive.
No World Cup would be rather lovely, however........

If the triage system worked properly it shouldn't really make any difference.....

I was in A&E a few weeks ago. The sheer number of people who have a whole entourage with them is astounding.
Theres no space for seating as it is let alone once you get called in.
An elderly lady had her son, his wife and two other women. The wife and other women were sitting in a another part.
The nurse called in the patient to the room and they all decided they needed to go in too.

The nurse said only one person and the rest would have to wait in the main waiting room outside not even this waiting room. I including other patients didn’t even have a seat.

The man said his wife was also a patient so should stay here! The nurse went away and catback to ask her to show him her wrist band which she clearly didn’t have and told off!

I hate to say it but most of these people who come with 3+ people are ethnic minorities and before I get flamed for being racist I am from one of these ethnic minorities.

But people enjoy playing sports. If no one did, then there would be no Olympics, World Cup etc.

The last couple of times DS 14 was in A&E, he swallowed a 50p piece when he was 11, and this year it ended up being Gilbert syndrome. Neither time was he screaming or crying. First time he needed an operation to remove the coin because it was sitting upright between the 2 tubes, second time they ran 4 blood tests because he had jaundice and they had no clue what was wrong with him. You can't diagnose someone by looking at them.

It's possible to keep fit without playing sports, without the dangerous competitive element.

As a counterpoint to this and in no way diminishing the hideous pain.

The first bout of hideous kidney pain which may or may not have been a stone we never found as well as an infection I left without even booking in as I couldn’t be arsed with the 4hr wait in that much pain. Granted I didn’t get far before I stopped off at minor injuries.

with the infected, obstructed one a year later that required the stent and went ‘a bit septic’ I was fine enough to laugh and joke with the staff and to a book prepared for the long wait.

I definitely remember joking around with a colleague when I had the sepsis from the pyelonephritis that I was really really sick from.

I’m not sure that judging other people on what you may think is or isn’t wrong with them is the way forward. As far as I am aware the RCEM caution against this. The fact the system is creaking/broken isn’t the fault of the people using it. As much as it benefits successive governments to convince people it is.

During Covid I developed a serious dental infection. Pharmacy directed me to dentist. I couldn't get an appt with the dentist. I went to A&E where they gave pain relief and said I needed to go through 111. I phoned 111 over 10 times trying to get an emergency dental appt - multiple times a dental nurse failed to contact me, and when one did, they laughed at me over the phone and said I clearly didn't have an infection and would not be referred for an appointment.

Eventually had to call an ambulance and was blue lighted in for an extended hospital stay with sepsis.

It's easy to dismiss someone at first glance, but you could cost them their life.

Are you medically qualified to judge people as just needing to see a chemist or a GP ? Or do you even know why they haven’t ?

I really like the idea of staff printing off advice and explanations of a patients’ condition too. Would make it much easier to sue when they got it wrong.

No, we should not need to pass a purity test to access a service that is paid for through taxation.

Would someone who had a mental health crisis and attempted to take their own life, be a waste of time too because it was “self-inflicted”?

I like the idea of staff printing off advice and explanations of a patient's condition as it appears quite a number of patients are ignorant of what their real problem is and how to deal with it. Whenever I've had to be in A&E, usually accompanying someone else, I've been amazed at the amount of people who could have just seen a chemist or GP instead and with problems I would never have bothered A&E for - the service is in the name. Meanwhile those in agony and distress just have to suck it up.

I’d hope that anyone waiting in A&E is there for good reason…anyone that is there for the likes of your example should be referred to the appropriate dept.
my family member was 8th in the ambulance queue last week… until they came to the ambulance did a blood test and realised they’d had a heart attack so obviously they were moved quickly then but it was awful to think had they not triaged in the back of the ambulance the wait they’d have had 😬

A lot of people would die if you introduce a charge.

That's not acceptable to the majority of voters in this country.

I think we should charge then maybe people would be more reluctant to turn up to AE

but if it serious and bloods and urine shows nothing then you end up back in AE by ambulance then it’s hard to see difference with what serious and what isn’t

My sister presented at a & e last year with panic attack symptoms which included chest pain. She had to be forced to attend as she felt foolish being there because of a panic attack and that's not a good use of a and e time.
It wasn't a panic attack she had had a heart attack and spent a week on the cardiac unit. She was there smiling and laughing and looked a picture of health in A & E.

On the other hand i took my daughter up to minor injuries the other week for a limb X Ray after a fall. Seemed ok but reduced movement and not improving. I mentioned this to a few people and got the same response of "oh I forget that's there, I would have gone to a & e". Our minor injuries is in a small former cottage hospital. We were there for 1.5h and then home again. It could take us that long to find a parking space at our local a & e

Thank you

I see you've apologised but just by way of another example -DH often comes with me if DS needs to go to a&e because my physical disability means I will deteriorate but also I need to be there as DH is a step parent so doesn't have PR (plus I know DS medical history inside out)

You're right - that was too sweeping!

But people bringing in whole extended families, which does happen, for what is basically a night out for them, should be stopped.
Yes - of course, 2 people - I can see that makes sense in many ways. Apologies.

So @CoffeeCantata when my 17 year old son was in A&E for hours after shuttling between UTC, the Eye Hospital and back to the main A&E he would allowed only one person with him in the 15 hours he was there and no food? The only way they could admit him was via A&E so we waited hours for a bed.

So yes sometimes there were 2 of us with him, sometimes we ate food and sometimes we sat and chatted in the 15 hours we were there.

He looked absolutely fine and you would assume by looking at him that he was a time waster. He was rapidly losing his eyesight which is an emergency even if it is pain free. He spent nearly a month in hospital and is under the care of 2 different hospitals and is now legally blind.

You cannot tell how serious a condition is by looking at someone nor how much support they need.

I agree, OP, but for reasons given here, it would be a brave medic who turned these time-wasters away.

There needs to be a minor injury unit available 24/7 - to keep the people with a cut finger out of A & E - and the govt needs an information campaign to deter people from wasting resources.

It's not so much the patients in A & E as the hangers on, taking up seats, ordering takeaways and generally being a pain. A & E need to employ massive 6 foot 5 bouncers to ensure that each casualty has a maximum of one person to accompany them. You can't expect health professionals to deal with difficult, violent and anti-social people -it needs to be an intimidating and burly man.