How long did your recent visit to A&E take?

[Magik01]

I’ve got a friend who went to A&E last night at 9pm, and walked out 9 hours after only having bloods done and no follow up.

it got me thinking, is this the norm for A&E on a normal Tuesday night or is our area just tragically understaffed and long wait times.

if you’ve recently visited A&E how long did you have to wait?

@L1ttledrummergirl it's not 111 policy - as long as your child gets the care they need there will be no reports made.

HCP here. When a 111 call is made, a report goes to your GP just as an FYI. If a follow up is required then it's done (although time scales are a total other thing). However, social services wouldn't be involved unless there was an indication of a serious safeguarding concern.

I have to say although that A&E waits have certainly got worse but I remember taking DD to A&E 21 years ago as a 4 year old. GP put her vomiting, high temp, lethargy and stomach pain down to constipation after several visits over a week so I decided to take her to A&E.

DH had to carry her in and she was literally unconscious, couldn’t be roused for the 4 hours we were waiting. I saw other people come in after us and get seen before us and had to start firmly and loudly saying she needed to.be seen NOW at that point. Don’t remember it being that busy either.

We were taken to a cubicle as I was causing a fuss and when the doctor came in she was very rude due asking why we didn’t think we should wait our turn (!), until she did a quick exam, left the room and came back with a load of doctors and nurses who had to hold DD down while she was intubated. We were then blue lighted in an ambulance to a larger teaching hospital 50 miles away as they suspected a stomach tumour. Turned out be appendicitis which they didn’t realise until they’d got her on the operating table to put a camera in her. It had just burst as well. She was in hospital for 10 days.

Conversely we’ve had to seek emergency medical care several times between the 6 of us, over the last 30 years when visiting DH’s very small country in the summer, massive influx of expats going home at that time too. It could be classed as a third world country compared to the UK, massively underfunded health system as well. Never remember waiting more than minutes to be seen. Lots of smaller emergency units in every village staffed by docs who can do minor surgeries with wards and everything. Rather like here before they decided to pile us all up into super max hospitals.

That's cute, but I've worked in healthcare emergencies and no, all the patients are not making things up for attention.

You can call me a liar if that's what's easiest for you to believe. The NHS is on its knees and people are forced to desperate measures, whether you want to convince yourself that I probably just had a broken nail or not.

I had a visit to urgent care on a Monday night a few months ago. I was advised to go by 111, waited 13 hours to be seenby a dr then 2 hours for medication as the pharmacy had just changed to a new system.
Summer 2021, with chemo alert card and suspected DVT (or infection in arm)they got me straight in a room in majors, took bloods, gave me anticoagulant jab and an antibiotic. They couldn't do an ultrasound on my arm until 2 days later though.

@TheWolves - grow up and stop twisting my words. You're embarrassing yourself now. Show me where I said all patients are making things up for attention or you probably only had a broken finger nail! I didn't.

Hundreds of people call ambulances and attend ED for ridiculous, frivolous non emergencies. And those are a large part of the reason why people who are in dire need of care die, and wait.

I never once suggested that you weren't ill and didn't need an ambulance however if you drove barely conscious then you're dangerous and irresponsible and could have killed other people (although from your attitude on this thread, it doesn't really surprise me). I hope you are well now, and if you ever need an ambulance again it isn't held up by time wasters.

You can insult me all you like. It doesn't change the facts. The NHS is not struggling because of the patients. And blaming patients is pretty grim, considering the number of people that are dying unnecessarily.

I'm well aware that it was dangerous. That's why I spent the journey crying in fear. No, I wasn't blasé about killing people. What a vile suggestion.

Are you sure you should be in a caring profession? Sounds like you left your empathy in a bin somewhere.

Again, you're trying to make it sound like I'm saying something I haven't. I haven't insulted you - I've commented on your attitude, which isn't an insult - it's an observation, of something that is laid bare for everyone to see.

Neither did I say you were blasé about driving in the condition you did - I said that it was dangerous and you could have killed others/yourself. Which you could. And the distinct possibility is, that the reason you felt the need to drive yourself in the condition you were in, is that ambulances were unavailable because they were tied up with unnecessary jobs, or unable to offload at ED due to unnecessary patients tying up beds/spaces for patients on their stretchers.

Ask literally anyone in emergency medicine, in the UK or in the country that I'm now in and they will tell you exactly that! One of the reasons (and notice I say one(!), albeit an extremely prevalent one), is due to the astonishing misuse of ambulance resources and emergency departments by the general public. So so many people are either unwilling or unable to comprehend what constitutes an emergency, or downright selfish and entitled. And to deny that's true, either shows that you are unaware of the situation, or unwilling to accept it, because as I said, every single HCP in any way connected to emergency medicine (or the other emergency services for that matter) will confirm it is true.

As I said before, I am very caring, extremely empathetic and compassionate. I actually do care, but believe me when I say that compassion fatigue is a real thing when you are faced time and time again with entitlement and selfishness using resources which are so desperately required for those in actual need. So if you are actually going to continue to insult me (as you already have at least twice), consider educating yourself or walking a mile in someone's shoes, because if you're not at the coal face you honestly have no fucking idea.

I've already told you I've worked in healthcare emergencies myself. I've been the one sending the ambulances out. I did not speak to this large proportion of time wasters ruining it for everyone else. I did have a lot of people terrified they were dying though. I don't appreciate them being impugned.

And I can read. I'm sure you think you're the picture of moderation. Unfortunately, what you are writing belies that.

Have a less angry day, please.

Yes I get angry! Of course I do. And if you had spent hours and hours witnessing people call ambulances for NOTHING, for coughs, colds, rashes, sprained ankles... If you had heard calls go out for people in cardiac arrest, huge scale MVAs, babies not breathing, and been unable to respond because you're holding an emesis bag for someone who is drunk and vomiting, you'd be angry too.

I presume you mean you worked in dispatch/emergency call taking - guess what - so did I - for a long time! And if you did, any time in the last 5-10yrs, then you're lying if you're claiming that one of the reasons emergency medicine is in such dire straits isn't because of time wasters and entitled people.

You can believe me or not, in the end it's of no consequence to me - I know it's true and so do all the other HCPs in emergency medicine who I work and have worked with. And for what it's worth, I've never shown anything but compassion to the vomiting drunks, time wasters, people who call ambulances to make them cups of tea etc etc etc whom I've treated but by god, it IS frustrating and it IS anger-some, but it's unfortunately, at this point, life. What is even more upsetting and anger-some are the people who deny it happens, because until people accept that it is the reality, it will never change.

So continue to insult me all you want if it makes you feel better. The reality is that until people start taking personal responsibility, things in emergency medicine will never improve because there just aren't infinite resources.

Thanks again for letting us all know that you blame the patients. Good to know.

@TheWolves

Good try, but no cigar. I most certainly don't blame the actual patients. The people who need ambulances and emergency departments. In fact, if you had actually read anything I'd written, instead of trying to point score against me, you'd see how clear it is that I feel desperately sad and sorry and angry for the sick and injured and dying. They are the ones who are suffering in this god forsaken broken mess.

Cool cool.

Actually, tell me honestly, forget your bizarre disdain for the health services (and me) - if you god forbid had to call an ambulance for someone in cardiac arrest, or someone who had severed an artery in an accident and was literally exsanguinating in front of you, and the closest ambulance couldn't respond because they were with someone two streets away, who had called an ambulance for the fourth time that day because they weren't happy with the last three crew's response to their swollen hand (that they fell on two days before while gardening). Or all the ambulances on stretcher at your nearest hospital couldn't respond because they couldn't offload their patient into an ED bursting with colds and flus. You wouldn't be even the slightest bit angry that those resources were wasted on shit, that they couldn't come to your aid in your greatest time of need? Because that's what's happening, day in day out.

If you wouldn't, you wouldn't, fair enough. But for those of us who live that reality daily, it doesn't make us bad people when it does upset us. In fact, if it didn't, that would be a bigger problem.

@TheWolves

"Cool, cool."

Right, got it - you have no interest in adult conversation or discussion. And to think I wasted my time putting forward measured information thinking maybe you just didn't get it. Go waste someone else's time with your infantile shit.

Emergency medicines... hahahaha. Don't make me laugh.

Apologies... "Healthcare emergencies"... LOL

👍

Paediatric A&E a few weeks ago - sent by GP. 6 hour wait to be seen then another 3 hour wait to see someone from the relevant team. Have been two or three times with DC efore and never had to wait more than an hour or two.

DH had 4hr wait last month, then X-rays and consultation which didn't seem too bad. But it's pot luck here. I knew an elderly gentleman who had a stroke and had to wait 7 hours for an ambulance.

The current situation terrifies me and I'm praying for a General Election asap

I hate the blame the patients culture. I think A&E is overwhelmed because of a lack of alternative NHS resources. In my case, had an urgent scan referral been possible, within a few days, we probably wouldn't have been sent to A&E. A few people in there had been had been to minor injuries unit but been sent to A&E because there is no x-ray facility at minor injuries.

No walk-in centre where we are and great difficulty accessing GP also leads some people to A&E out of desperation.

I'm not sure whether your post was aimed at me or not, but if it was... the blame for (elements of) the overloaded and overstretched state of emergency medicine, isn't focussed on actual patients, people who have been directed to the ED because other services aren't available, people who are genuinely acopic with symptoms that feel unbearable, we are angry and blaming actual time wasters. People who literally call an ambulance for a sore throat that hasn't resolved in 24hrs, people who have sprained their ankle, people who have a mild fever but who haven't tried paracetamol, people who have drank too much and are vomiting. I could go on and on. And it's not an unusual, rare thing that happens the odd time. It is literally one of the things that is bringing emergency medicine to its knees. And it needs to be highlighted, or it won't stop.

HCPs aren't monsters who hate patients and done care, quite the opposite.

i
took
sh one morning 5 am ish as he was vomiting blood. He went from triage through for further investigations and by 1pm has bloods, uss and ct done. He was really ill with a bowel obstruction but I’m still so thankful they recognised it and he got exceptional treatment. Emergency surgery was the following day. Until that point he’d been repeatedly told it was gastroenteritis, for weeks! All nhs Gp appointments by telephone of course!!

By lunchtime A&E waiting area was full and wait times considerably longer!

DH and I are both specialists, he was trained in the UK. He has friends who are still still working there and some are also inclined to blame the crazy waits in A and E on patients presenting with relatively minor issues and on bed blockers at the other end.

However one of our friends is a UK trained A and E consultant and she disagrees.

She makes the point that the people who come in for relatively straight forward issues happen in other countries than in the UK, that they take minutes to see and sort out and send home and they can safely wait for hours.

Ambulance in with a parent. Observations started within 15 mins. Chest pains and sky high blood pressure.
The ambulance crew were fab and came back to see her when waiting to drop other patients. She was very lucky. That hospital was known to be reasonably quiet. The a&e admissions was very orderly and not busy. Not what I’ve experienced myself with Ds or dh. They have been hours and hours.

"I drove in pain, barely conscious, definitely a danger to myself and others for the only reason that I had no choice" FFS @TheWolves this is so irresponsible, and I'm Team @WhereTheFuckIsMyFuckingCoat here. You knowingly putting other peoples lives at risk is just indefensible. I imagine you didn't abandon your car outside, presumably you managed to park up and managed to get into A and E, and managed this without an ambulance.

The vast vast majority of NHS staff are completely overworked, its unsustainable and it's due to a total lack of investment and just not giving a fuck, by the government for over a decade. I would hope every person who has experienced awful wait times has written to their MP (especially if they're conservative MPs).