Walked out of A and E after 9 hours and only triage completed !!

[bumblebee1000]

Don't consider myself at all naive but haven't been anywhere near a hospital for any urgent treatment in over 30 years. Rang 111 yesterday due to constant headaches for almost a week, was advised to attend local hospital [london]. Queue out the door, after 7 hours was seen by a doctor for appx 1 minute who said they will want to do blood tests and possibly an mri scan, was told blood tests could be a further 5 hours, a scan possibly a further 7 to 9 hours so in total basically 24 hours. I couldn't wait so told nurse I was leaving and will follow up with GP and a wealthy old friend has offered to pay the £300 for the mri scan which is lovely. I was stunned to see so many people sleeping on floor and who had been there for hours before me. Then a man went beserk and grabbed a fire extinguisher and smashed in the windows of the reception area, coffe machine and a door, police already on site as were with a chap in hancuffs.....awful. I did notice that many names were called and nobody responded so assume they just left without informing anyone, I felt informing them of my departure, was the least I could do so time isn't wasted on no shows etc.

why would you go to the pharmacist for a persistent headache rather than the gp? Surely gp is the first port of call for those types of things?

The system is very very broken, last week my 86yr old relative was left in a chair in a&e vomiting blood from 8pm to 6am. All night in a plastic chair awake at his age. It upset me a lot.

Because there is a 4 week wait for a GP and people try and avoid ED?

Some people cannot get a GP appointment; as has been highlighted on this thread repeatedly.

The 8am rush at some surgeries has made it almost impossible to get a on the day app, and you could wait multiple weeks for a pre-booked app.

So what'd you suggest she do next? She spoke to the pharmacist, which is encouraged, and then 111 who told her to go to A&E. She did what she was told to to by the professionals she spoke to.

My dad passed out at the weekend fell and cut his head and face.
Went to local hospital walk in centre seen very quickly cleaned him up and bandaged but told to go to a proper a&e as he is on medication and would need a CT scan.
Even with the paperwork from the first hospital he waiting from 5pm to 3am when he was admitted.

In that time he spoke on his phone , ate a sandwich, read the papers and had a cuppa. Pretty sure being able to occupy yourself as you wait isn’t something that means you don’t qualify for treatment.

He was also almost landed on by someone with mental health issues who was being tackled by a police officer.

I did a poll here yesterday asking how easy it is to get a doctors appointment within 3 days where you live. About a quarter struggle to get an appointment AT ALL, EVER. There is huge variety of provision around the country.
That’s why the responses here range from “why didn’t you just get a same-day appointment at your GP” to “I hear you”.

Huge swathes of society have no access to primary care at all. My personal view is that the more wealthy areas are left to their own devices - private health care to the NHS by the back door. The system is screwed.

Or if you look at the Poll in chat, many people don’t get an appointment at all.

Why are we accepting it?

You had a headache.
No wonder you were firmly at the bottom of the list as you should be 🙄

You should’ve gone to your GP. Why is common sense always so lacking when it comes to A&E 🤦‍♀️

Hope that you feel better soon @bumblebee1000

Ignore all of the experts who know better on here. You did the right thing by going.

I don't know why people are acting like this is new...or unusual.

I fractured my coccyx and broke my leg when I was 12. I had to wait 10 hours in A&E before I even got any pain relief - and that was 18 years ago.

Admittedly it was Maydie (the hospital - those who know, know) but still, let's not act like A&E hasn't been overrun by people who didn't need to be there for years.

Yet some GPs can’t get work as there’s no money to pay them. Instead there’s money diverted into other non-doctor roles who, guess what, divert you to see a doctor. But no doctors, and so it goes:
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/12/england-locum-gps-doctors-work-surgeries-british-medical-association

People die/get seriously ill with that attitude

Really Maybe they leave people so long to see who actually needs seeing. The really sick people will stay the time wasters will walk.

Partner has a pretty rare and little understood condition and ended up in A and E after six episodes in one day, the trigger point at which her previous specialist told her to call 999. This was in a different part of the country where things are bad but not quite at the developing world levels they are in our current county.

As an ex nurse, they were appalled at what she saw from the frontline staff. And they trained and worked in a developing country.

Last time the CQC investigated this A and E it was long before COVID and it was as the result of an anonymous tip off. Funny how history repeats itself.

Next time we think we'll just let her die at home.

She was in there over 9 hours by the way and in a shocking state when she came out.

Everyone saying "just get a GP appt" is a wild optimist. I've not been able to get a GP appt for years. I can afford to go private now but if I couldn't...A&E is the only way to actually get a foot in the door of the health system.

Wow i never knew that being unable to use your phone or eat was a criteria for being allowed in A&E. They don't need triage in hospitals, they just need you judgemental lot to go through the waiting room and kick out anyone who looks at their phone or eats something. The NHS will be fixed in no time!

This is what I do

so what will you do now op?@bumblebee1000

I do feel that part of the rise in A&E waiting times is due to the use of AI combined with unqualified triage staff. My GP service uses an “Anima” app for triage. I had a UTI which had become a kidney infection, the app refused to put my request through to the GP and told me to call 999. the combination of lower back pain and fever with the other symptoms triggered an “emergency “ alert.

Luckily I ignored it, rang GP and argued with receptionist for a bit, got a call back and was on antibiotics after a urine dip within an hour. But if I’d done what I was told to I’d have been in A&E for 24 hours like the OP!

I always think this is a part of it. If it was made to convinent everyone would go for everything

They tell you to go to the pharmacist for advice because the GP service is broken.

I tried to contact the GP for advice regarding a medical issue with my severely disabled son. He had been seen in ED that week, they were concerned it might need surgery, and were going to follow up in clinic within a week. He was given antibiotics to prevent anything catastrophic happening and these were now running out with no clinic date. The clinic team had informed me they hadn’t even been able to look at his referral. This is someone incredibly vulnerable. I rang the GP to discuss whether he could get more antibiotics to tide him over to the appointment and was told they had run out of triage appointments for that day and if I wanted one I had better call within about 5 mins of opening up the next day but there was no guarantee he would be seen anytime soon. I said ‘so all I can do is present at ED again?’ And they said yes.

Anyway eventually managed to talk to a Dr in the clinic, but this is the reality. People end up at ED because there is nowhere else - and they do have something that needs medical attention

What hospital?

My GP refused recently to see my daughter (15) for stomach pain and directed us to A and E. I think GPs are a big part of the problem.

Oh and for a while my son‘a GP surgery moved to an external online system for a lot of appointments. They arranged this for my son for something quite complex. Because he can’t talk that service then refused to talk to me (I am his court appointed deputy for health and welfare as well as his mother, and he can’t talk/has severe learning disabilities anyway).

He also can’t attend the GP surgery so needs a home visit which wasn’t available so again was getting to only option being ED