Woman dies whilst waiting to be seen at A&E

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-68243636

The poor woman- She had been waiting 7 hours before she was found unconscious then dies few days later.
Now they want to launch an investigation into this case - like doh?? Isn’t it obvious that because she wasn’t treated promptly, she died? Maybe recruit and pay staff more to avoid cases like this happening again? But no, they would rather waste money and put it into investigating it instead of fixing the blinding obvious issue here that A&Es are not coping.

It's salutary to remember what Boris and friends told us the NHS would be like post Brexit.

Right now, most of us would welcome the "Remain" scenario with open arms compared with what we have now.

They can be survivable, but not always.

My colleague walked into work, and then walked out to get something from the car, and was chatting to someone she met when she collapsed with a massive anyrism. The ambulance was there in less than 10 minutes and she was airlifted to St George's within an hour and went straight into surgery. She still never came out of the coma.

She had top care as quickly as possible, but it wasn't survivable, nor was it predictable. There was nothing about her that said this was going to happen, I presume she had a headache but she didn't say and she came into work.

I am so sorry you had this experience, I totally empathise. I had a similar experience and then suffered terrible flashbacks and anxiety. I paid privately for counselling with a clinic psychologist which helped me work through the whole experience and reach some level of calm. What the hell has happened to this country?

Gosh 😔 it's shocking how misled the country was.

I think it's hard to believe until you've seen it. A room full of vulnerable people with nothing to eat and noone to ask for pain relief (well someone rushed through occasionally and if you were lucky you could ask). Old people who shouldn't be up all night anyway. Suicidal teen (there were 2, one with self harm scars) in amongst all this and obviously scared. A guy with mental health issues who couldn't walk and really needed sleep. As well as the person who came in and said with their condition they usually needed to be seen quickly (they kept pestering the recpetion and eventually they were trigaed and did get taken in but it was a couple of hours in!)

These are all awful and horrific experiences.

How did we get here? What have the Tories done to this country?

That's the A&E that is local to me (the only one in Nottingham). My sister, who has advanced dementia, waited 27 hours on a trolley there, before a bed was found on a ward.

Most A&E departments are seeing record numbers of visits, many more than they were designed for.

A&E's main problem is that the doors never close. I'm not saying they should. It just means that when people can't get a GP appointment in a timely way, the problem ends up at A&E. if someone needs to be seen by a district nurse but can't get an appointment, that becomes an A&E problem.

Serious health issues arriving in A&E can't get admitted into the hospital quickly because beds are full. Discharging patients home with ongoing care needs is challenging when the social care system is under such strain.

We need to fund the NHS better but that money shouldn't necessary go to your nearest large hospital.

If we could only sort out each side of the hospital process, things would be better. Primary and community provision and social care are in desperate need of investment.

I say this as someone who works for a large hospital and am currently undergoing treatment for cancer. I see the system from both sides and yes that includes A&E visits with chemo-related problems.

Wow. Many years ago I went to A&E with chest pain, which I was pretty sure was a pulled muscle/RSI. As soon as they knew it was chest pain on the left side, they put me in a wheelchair and whisked me through to be seen immediately, even though as a young woman I would have been very low risk for cardiac problems.

I've had to take DD to A&E three times recently, experiencing 2 different hospitals.

Hospital 1 in the North of England: triaged within half an hour of arriving, in a cubicle with thorough examination by Nurse Practitioner after an hour and saw a Dr within 2 hours. Bloods and scan done within 3 hours of arriving. 8 hours between arriving and getting a bed on a ward but we were well looked after during those hours.

Hospital 2, a well respected hospital in the South of England: arrived with letter from GP stating the serious medical history and the need for a blood test and scan. Triaged after about an hour then left to wait for 5 hours before we saw a Dr who arranged for her to be admitted. A&E never got around to doing the blood test. It was done on the ward which we go onto at 3am, 9 hours after arriving at the hospital. I had to be very forceful to get the scan she needed which picked up on a problem that required surgery.

I'm sure children are dying unnecessarily, especially those whose parents will struggle to advocate for them for whatever reason. At both hospitals I had to fight for the care my daughter needed because 'she looks well' but I knew there was something seriously wrong.

That being said, we have been looked after by some truly fantastic nurses and doctors along the way and it is not the staff's fault that things are in this state.

In both A&E settings there were lots of parents there just to get ABs for their kids' chest infections which must be due to poor access to GP care.

I also think A&E need a separate area for people who go in with vomiting bugs. Even if you don't give a shit about everyone else in A&E catching these bugs it doesn't make any sense from an operational stance to have patients who may well be admitted to hospital wards sitting next to people who are vomiting to then bring these bugs onto the wards.

I can well believe it. The waiting times in A&E are horrendous. There was one doctor on in children’s A&E when I went with my dc recently in the middle of the night. It was packed out. He announced he was the only doctor and there was no one in the hospital who could help him. He said there was no queueing system. There was no food, no drink, no vending machines. One person went out to buy bottled water for everyone.

In this poor woman’s case, there are so many awful sights and people so obviously extremely unwell, that I can see how she could be overlooked as just another patient. The staff are so busy that there is no one to report to if you as a patient were concerned about someone.

All of you are pretending to care. Saying ‘oh I’m so sorry OP’
and then when the next election comes you’ll all vote for the Tories again as ‘they know what a woman is’ 🙄

Of course she may have still died if she'd been seen immediately - people die! You can't prove a "what if?" or leap to any conclusions at all.

She wouldn’t have spent her last few conscious moments alone, frightened and in pain though, would she?

Fuck me.

I can’t believe people are defending this because ‘she may have died anyway’.

Labour have got themselves into this position as they didn't want to be left behind from the identity politics bandwagon.
"all of you" - interesting way to generalise the women on mumsnet. I forgot we are all the Borg.

Absolutely this. You all keep thinking on that one and decide what's a bigger issue. Effective healthcare or some culture war bs that they conveniently do nothing about

@BeaRF75 what a cold hearted response , oh it’s ok she was left die , spend her last hours of life on a chair with a coat over her away from her children because she might of died anyway. Nice.

Lots of awful stories on here, but I'd like to point out that this is nothing new.

25 years ago DH had an accident at work and broke his elbow. We went to A&E and waited for seven hours. Immediately before DH there was a child with a broken ankle, in pain and in a wheelchair.

By 2am we were exhausted and as we lived nearby decided to go home, get some sleep and go back in the morning and queue again.

When we got back at 8am, the boy was still waiting in the wheelchair and hadn't been seen. Shortly after he was called in and a few minutes later, DH was. They hadn't realised that we had disappeared for six hours and DH hadn't lost his place in the queue. The treatment was very poor and DH was just given a sling. He still has the fracture visible on X-rays and a chunk of bone floating loose in his arm.

Years earlier I had taken my exH to the same hospital with an arm the size of a balloon with cellulitis and he was shouted at by the doctor for time wasting although he did give him antibiotics.

I could cite a lot more examples of A&E neglect. My dad in 2003 given no treatment for a heart attack which left him with so much heart damage that the rest of his life was badly impacted. My mother told in 1990 that she had diverticulitis when she was having a heart attack and died.

Emergency treatment has been a lottery for at least 35 years.

Is this part of a "target" culture?

The target to have a decision in 4 hours of arrival to admission, transfer, or discharge.

So it could mean that focusing on people with more trivial issues helps you achieve that target instead of focussing on clinical need?

And if someone has not been seen in 4 hours, then the time they actually get seen won't matter as they are already post 4 hours?

The same thing that happens when targets get set - people focus on achieving the target and forget the actual needs (see also GCSE targets in the old days when it focused on just those who might get a Grade C)

It's a sad story.

Another aspect of overwhelmed A&E is people going when they don't need to, I've sat waiting with my DS (cellulitis) hearing ppl there who have had S&D but couldn't get a GP appointments, many things can be treated with over the counter meds never mind GP visits. One woman said oh well i've been here hours might as well wait, she'd been sick 6 hrs previously and happily munching snacks!!!
Also GPs saying if your not feeling better in 2 days go to A&E, awful system all round

Surely the point is that regardless of whether she could have been saved or not, there was no need for her to die alone on the floor like a stray dog. That’s disgraceful.

Re people going who don’t need to. I have seen people going in to be triaged and then being sent home straight away presumably because the nurse didn’t think they needed to see a doctor.

How terrible 😥

When you're waiting in A and E, people say things like "At least you're in the right place". Obviously not true for everyone these days. Poor, poor woman and her family, this will be so traumatising for them.

There will still be plenty of people voting for the shower that got us in this mess next time around though, and plenty more complaining about taxes being too high.

Public health in an era of an aging population with chronic, expensive health conditions needs a lot of funding, but by and large people don't want to pay for it.

MIL went to QMC by ambulance last year after having a heart attack. She was seen, had all the tests she needed, had medication and transported to the City hospital, where the cardiac unit is, all in the space of 4 hours.

DS2 used to be a staff nurse in A&E, he left when he felt the situation he was being made to work in was dangerous. That was all he wanted to do since he was a little boy but he lasted 18mths.

He couldn’t stay in a job where he’d turn up to find 20+ ambulances parked outside waiting to unload, patients still in the department who’d been there when he’d left to go home 12 hours before and people abusing him when he and his colleagues were absolutely trying to do their very best but it was like trying to fight a fire with a leaky hose.

He’s still in nursing. He’s meant to a be a nurse. He’s doing his masters atm so I hope he sticks to it, if he doesn’t I won’t blame him.