Nine hours in A&E

[MotherOfGodWeeFella]

I recently spent nine hours in A&E and it was horrific. I was in agony - advised to go there by 111. There was no pain relief that worked for four and a half hours. I was doubled up in pain in the waiting room. I told a nurse doing observations: she didn't even respond to me. It was really busy and for at least three hours after I was triaged there didn't seem to be many staff on shift so I didn't advocate for myself as well as I could have. It was such an awful experience. I wouldn't go there again unless I was taken in an ambulance.

In the end they didn't really know what had caused my pain but as it eventually subsided I was sent home. The experience has really affected me. I'm almost traumatised by it. Nine hours in the packed waiting room, in hideous pain for much of it with no communication other than announcements about how many hours it was taking to see a doctor. It was the same for everyone else waiting. Anyone with suspected broken bones got seen first. The more acute cases I'm guessing were in the cubicles further in. I don't really know why I'm posting.

Sorry for your experience. Sadly it has become the norm across the country. I lost my Dad last year after the hospital sent him home without any bloods - he died a few days later from Sepsis (multi-organ failure in ITU). He had a cardiac arrest and we did not make it in time to be with him. I will never get over the appalling care he received it has left our family devastated.

That does sound rubbish. I think broken bones are seen first as they are often easy to bounce back out the door without being seen by a doctor nowadays. I took DS recently he was dealt with by a nurse practitioner., x ray, buckle fracture confirmed. He got a splint (no cast) and a follow up appointment at the virtual fracture clinic, so his x ray was reviewed and someone called to confirm next steps. I’d assume you needed to see a doctor hence the wait.

Id definitely follow up with your Gp and ask for a blood work up. Try and get to the root of what caused it.

You are no better off being taken in by ambulance. Our A&E regularly has 15+ ambulances queuing up outside. My DH had an accident and was sat on the ambulance for 3 hours in agony.

Similar here, it was 14 hours for me and I was treated like I was a drug seeking drug addict because I asked for Couldn't sit, stand, talk or breath properly due to the severity of the pain.
I was only given one dose of Co codamol within the 14 hours (didn’t touch the pain) because I knew someone who worked there who just happened to see me in the waiting room.

I truly believe that if the stomach ulcer causing my pain had burst and I bled to death in that waiting room, no one would have either noticed or cared. I would have been dead for hours.

My question is, what about those unable to advocate for themselves?

@OhshutupSandra I'm sorry about your dad. It was 3.5 hours after triage before my bloods were taken. I'd been at the hospital 4.5 hours by then. The results were normal apparently, I found out hours later. The booklet for each patient had a red flagged sepsis page - obviously designed to make sure the signs aren't missed.

There was no care shown in all the time I was waiting, I think that's what's really affected me. There was no communication. Observations were done in a perfunctory way. I feel now as though the staff weren't talking to patients in case they then needed to do additional tasks. It was only when I saw the nurse who took my bloods and fitted a cannula that I could talk to anyone about how much pain I was in. I was then given IV paracetamol which gave me some relief. Triage I can best describe as brusque.

My dh was sent home with confirmed sepsis from one A&E, this was after blood tests.
An emergency GP appointment 2 days later and he was sent to a different A&E, just over the county border.
He was in the waiting room for 9 hours before seeing a doctor who immediately put up an antibiotic drip and put him in the corridor. He was there for another 7 hours before being admitted.

He was extremely poorly, ended up being in just short of 2 weeks, so don't think being "more ill" gets you through any faster.

@Brandnewskytohangyourstarsupon that's awful. Triage gave me a 30mg codeine tablet. It didn't work at all.

You all know what to do on the 4th of July ......

I'm actually not sure what I'll call the doctors' cubicles in A&E were being used - I saw one elderly patient in the first one when I was taken through for a scan around 6pm. Everything seemed to be being done in a central area with cubicles the nurses were using for short procedures with patients - you went in with a nurse and then went back to the waiting room.

Nearly ten years ago I was treated in that A&E after being taken in by ambulance. Very different experience.

I hope to goodness it does make a difference.

Ambulanced in makes no difference to how you’re treated or wait times.
Im really sorry for your experience but please remember that A&E is about saving lives ultimately not managing pain. Whilst I understand you were very worried and did the right thing going in please remember that whilst unpleasant your pain did resolve itself and you are now, presumably, not dying and or dead.
Broken bones are prioritised because of the risk to life they can pose if 2-3 situations happen and they are still not the top level priorities by far.

They’ll have triaged you, if your obs were all ok it’s highly unlikely you’re in serious danger so you do have to be prioritised accordingly. Ultimately the NHS just can’t cope but unless the country are willing to fund it properly it is what it is.

So sorry to read of your experience op and of the experiences of others on this thread.

Please know that the current situation in nhs hospitals and emergency departments is the direct result of years of reduced funding, a rise in demand which is not being met with increased financial support, not enough pay for staff (so poor staff retention) and a workforce that is exhausted and under capacity.

The nhs is in crisis and you experienced this first hand. A pp said that if they had died they felt no one would have cared. As a healthcare professional myself I want you to know that no one goes into healthcare not caring about their patients. No one wants to work in these conditions much less have their patients experience such poor care.

We have no choice but to keep going with what very little help and support the government provides and it's pretty soul destroying.

My FIL just spent over 2 days in A&E waiting for a bed on a ward after being transferred from a cottage hospital. When he eventually went up to the ward his condition was considerably worse than when he arrived!

It's obviously going to take time. The health service has been systematically choked of funds over the last 14 years, we also have an older and sicker population than ever before. There are no miracle cures, however I do believe Labour have the ambition to improve things, the Tories will just continue to run it into the ground, as for Reform lets just not go there.

I think it depends more on the time of day. In the past 3 years I've broken both shoulders on separate occasions. One was a Wednesday morning and I was in and out within a couple of hours. Next time was a Saturday night and I was there all night. Same hospital.

That’s horrible OP. Pain like that is terrifying and if no one is seemingly taking it seriously or even acknowledging it, even more so. You’d expect to get some compassion at least even if staff were rushed off their feet.

I once had indescribable pain from a tooth infection that got into my jaw bone. Being told to ‘take paracetamol’ by an unsympathetic dentist just made me feel utterly helpless - which is how I imagined you felt.
Hope you can get to the bottom of the pain and that it doesn’t happen again.

@Thehonestbadger I know what you are saying is true, but where is your empathy? This was the worst pain I have ever had and I'm a migraine sufferer. 111 told me to go to A&E. It was a really scary, lonely experience despite being in a room full of other people. "Presumably not dying or dead" - are you for f*cking real?

Until we have a proper conversation about the madness of keeping people in their 80s and 90s with multiple organ failure alive for weeks in ICU it won't change. An aging population and a demanding population wanting immediate cures for everything plus massive advances in medicine means no completely free service can be everything to everyone.

I'm sorry to hear about the bad experiences - it can vary so much what with volume of patients/staffing levels.

I guess I'd expect a 4 hour wait in general, it's not a walk in the park. 9 hours and I'd probably be fast asleep on the floor.

@Spidey66 - late morning on a Monday. It was already busy and just got busier. Peaking between 3 and 4pm. Numerous announcements made asking relatives to give up seats for patients, which a large number of people just ignored too.

My grandmother had a stroke. Told on the phone it was a 4 hour wait for an ambulance. They had to drive her there and it was hours before she was seen, on a bed in a corridor for over 48 hours.

I said this would happen 3 years ago, as it did in the 80’s - children dying - missed diagnosis’s were common.

We need a spotlight in the issues because the doctors and nurses complaining isn’t workings

Mondays are always the worst. Best time to be seen ? 8am on a Wednesday highest levels of staffing, all departments working as well as they can. We you admitted MotherofGodWeefella ? I hope you are feeling better now.

It also depends on what you go for v timing. Last time I took my mum having been sent by the gp, following them asking for advice by phone from a consultant it took about 11 hours hours to get through a&e triage and then wait to be seen by a doctor. When she eventually was seen by the consultant the next morning who the gp had phoned, he said “you should have come in last night”, we had it had had taken thst long to get though a&e. One of the staff said they tend to get a lot of medical stuff on a Monday as people struggle through the weekend to see the gp on the Monday who may then end up sending them to a&e like happened with my mum (it was a Monday we were there), Friday and Saturday nights there are a lot of drunken injuries, Saturday and Sunday daytime a lot of sports injuries. The injuries don’t tend to take as long as a lot don’t need a doctor

I'm sorry about your experience but sadly it's not unusual.

Combination of factors. The NHS has been starved of cash, doctors and nurses have been so badly treated over recent years that it's a wonder anyone wants to work for the NHS frankly.

Plus there's so much abuse of A&E. I've had the misfortune to have to go at a weekend when the place was full of drunks. There was also a man in handcuffs, who was accompanied by two police officers at all times (so when they changed shift, another two came in - just think of the cost to the public purse of that situation alone.) My BIL (former police officer) told me after that it's not unusual for people who've been arrested to suddenly become 'ill', whether it's time wasting or a diversion tactic, and everyone has to go through the rigmarole of this, even though there's a 99% chance it's nothing.

The system is broken. Of course a ton more money is needed but that alone won't fix it when there's abuse of the NHS and regulars who turn up in A&E through their own actions.

I spent 7 hours in A&E with a child with an obvious broken bone that you could have diagnosed from the opposite side of the room. No pain relief. That was in 1998 when Tony Blair was PM. The NHS needs a massive overhaul and has done for decades. Not just tinkering around the edges.