NHS crisis is real. I've seen it

[sandyorsnow]

Obviously you don't need me to tell you, I know that I'm just so random person

But I just wanted to say what I saw yesterday

I was waiting in a line outside A&E yesterday and a woman behind me collapsed on the floor. She had oxygen on anyway

I escorted her to the front and I was pushed to the side forcefully by a man at the fronts who shouted 'wait you're turn!'

Thankfully a nurse came out to assist her. And then I finally got to the front myself

I went through to A&E with DD and sat in the initial paeds waiting bit to be triaged. My DD was called instantly and the woman who was sat there with her very bored looking teen said 'that's it. I'm fucking out of here!'

DD was having a seizure.

Came up onto the wards as needed a transfer to GOSH. 6 hour wait for an ambulance and the nursing station was nearby. The doctor was on the phone every 5/10 mins demanding updates as she wanted DD moved asap

When we were initially waiting outside A&E, the ambulance bay had a paramedic standing nearby explaining to another ambiance that they couldn't let them through and they'd have to go to another hospital (25 miles away)

I was actually a nurse in the late 80s and our midsized town of 58,000 people plus a neighbouring one Two miles away of 37,000 people actually had 2 full scale A&Es and 2 big hospitals and this was under Thatcher too!!

^ Along with drunken arseholes.

I’ve been to A&E with baby DD (sent there by a G.P) and there was a bloke trying wretching/ trying to throw up. A nurse said, ignore him he’s here a lot pretending to vomit but just spits on the floor, he’s harmless, let me shut the door. The things they must have to put up with.

@Stickortwister I'm so sorry- I actually saw my female GP yesterday and told her we were moving areas and were talking about the local A&E as she had sent me for tests a few weeks ago- she100% agreed with me and could understand why I wanted a semi decent hospital on the doorstep. She did say she suprisingly that she felt many people in London were actually better covered off if they needed emergency care than in the provinces -

I’m sorry it came to that for you. It should never have come to that. It makes me so sad. Everyone is being failed… by the politicians.

@Crikeyalmighty Not forgetting that Wexham Park picked up a load of patients with the A&E at Wycombe closed 10 or so years ago, which has ruined SMH and WPH.

i often chat to the queuing paramedics from different areas that will tell you all about how long they’ve spent queuing at different hospitals.

@ODPintheNHS It really is ridiculous that one hospital is covering such a huge heavily populated area for A&E and as it's in the middle of nowhere it's parking situation is useless too. I was actually quite alarmed on having now been there. Not fit for purpose!

ROI of Ireland also has a similar shit system that’s paid for.

Not sure how true it is but I’m told the €100 charge when going to A&E was introduced to stop feckless time wasters dropping in.

GPS Aparantly great at €65. Although if they send you A&E at least there’s no additional €100.

Yes, absolutely this. It's more damaging and more visible because of patients requiring care but it seems that in all spheres, the accolade-chasers multiply and there's always the money for that bollocks.

Never the money for where it is so desperately needed. The NHS is being mismanaged into the ground and it is only by dint of the seriously professional medical/auxiliary staff that it's kept running at all.

I'm so sad to read the posts here from those who've lost people they loved who should not have died. It's inexcusable.

Yea seen some absolute turds when been a patient across a multitude of age ranges. Selfish demanding abusive.

Departments closed down without any consideration to the impact this has for people living in those areas, never mind holiday makers etc.

Then these current lot of arseholes made it a whole lot worse during covid by not investing in the right areas, instead bunging mates money for ppe and the pop up things that weren’t really needed. Never mind paying insane amount of money creating unnecessary positions to harass people to get the vax. (Cannot remember the job title, but the pay was insanely high).

@Crikeyalmighty Im not at WPH, but the other one struggles year round!

@ihatethefuckingmuffin absolutely.

Teakup - so sorry

I went to L&D A&E in the summer of 2020. There were more patients in A&E than seats by about 150% and people weren't managing to keep .5m apart let alone 2.

I actually left and went to another hospital.

Locally, SM isn't much better. I recently waited 7 hours there despite being an urgent case with a referral that should have sent me straight onto a ward. They are just absolutely overrun and can't cope with the demand. The medical staff are all brilliant but the severity of the illnesses of some of the people waiting hours to be seen is scary and will be costing lives.

I've got to the point where I'll head to the London hospital where my specialist outpatient care is and attend at A&E there because I'm worried that the wait at SM or L&D could cost me my health or worse.

Yep, 8 year old DS had an asthma attack a month ago. GP wouldn't see him afterwards said if it happened again to call for an ambulance. It did the next day so we ended up in A& E, lovely paramedics said paeds was ok but adults a nightmare. Waited 4 hours and were only seen them because he started wheezing again. Doc we saw asked why we hadn't seen GP the day before as they could have prescribed oral steroids on top of inhalers. I explained and he asked if we were at X surgery - we are and he rolled his eyes. Apparently they're renowned for not seeing patients that need it.

I know the funding and support is awful but it's getting properly scary if you have a sick child.

This just highlights that issues with closing departments. Once upon a time you would have had that outpatient in one of your hospitals.

Instead you’re forced to travel into London, which really isn’t fair in Londoners. And london a&e become even more crowded as a result, along with waiting times, beds etc.

Im not blaming you btw. I can understand why having gone the a&e route to change a department that was negligent of my care and refuse to go back there. It was bad enough before covid etc dread to think how everything would have panned out if it was now.

Jess Phillips the MP has been tweeting while she has been sat in A & E with an elderly member of her family overnight today in Birmingham, they have been waiting over 12 hours, her family member is seriously ill. You can bet she will be raising it in Parliament when she gets back, it is getting worse & we haven't got to winter yet

I'm in South Yorkshire, if we ever need A & E we don't go to the hospital in our city because it is always rammed 24/7, we go over the border in to Derbyshire & use that hospital, waiting times are less & you can get seen & treated in a maximum of 6 hours.

Instead you’re forced to travel into London, which really isn’t fair in Londoners. And london a&e become even more crowded as a result, along with waiting times, beds etc.

The London A&E departments seem to be fairing much better than my local hospitals. I've just spot-checked a couple of the big London hospitals and they're managing to see 90% of patients within 4 hours. The Bucks hospitals can only dream of a statistic like this. The area they cover is huge and densely populated. They seem to quite frequently have to close their doors and divert to other hospitals.

@ReallyShouldBeDoingSomethingElse

I can count 2 occasions in 10 years that SM has had to shut their doors to emergency care. One of those was a fire.

they don’t shut, because the other local hospitals OUH, WPH, L&D and MKH are all in the same position. You can’t shut your doors to ambulances and patients for emergency care unless it’s seriously dangerous.

I saw a queue of 10 ambulances outside Lister on a Sunday afternoon in the summer. FIL had waited nearly 5 hours for one to arrive and died of sepsis.

DH was a GP until earlier this year when he handed his contract back after 20 years. GP’s have never stopped seeing patients - including throughout Covid and are now seeing even more patients. However large numbers of GP’s have left, including my DH, so there are fewer GP’s to see more people wanting an appointment
There was no one to take on DH’s practice so 10,000 patients had to find another (already busy) practice

Not had fantastic care there! Still it's better than Whipps Cross!

Whips cross has been dire for years

Sounds like a normal day in A&E to me. Our local A&E has 14 hour wait to see a doctor. That's standard. There's usually 10+ ambulances all queueing outside waiting to hand over patients but there's no space to do so.

This means people who have called 999 for an ambulance are waiting a long time because there's no free ambulances.

It's been like this for some time.

Yes we do this aswell. I'm in Wales and our local A&E is horrific with 14 hour waits to see a doctor, but we live close to the border and there are 2 A&E's in Bristol that have much shorter wait times. We've been there twice recently (chest pain, so we did need to be there) and were seen within 4 hours each time.