Health Anxiety clogging up A&E

[Influencerofcrap]

Im really pleased that finally someone within the NHS has come out and said this.

Having been treated myself in A&E, in the corridor (outside triage) due to lack of cubicles, I was genuinely shocked at the amount of patients that attended who shouldn’t have been there. I’m not talking about those that were genuinely ill and couldn’t see the GP and had no other choice but the ones that were clearly anxious about their health and symptoms that didn’t warrant an A&E visit. They were all sent on their way but it still was time that was taken away from those patients that genuinely needed help. I wonder what the answer is to this, because something has to change.

Health anxiety not emergencies clogging-up A&E

Who knew having the Daily Death Show™️ in 2020 would cause people to get health anxiety? I mean, surely anyone with half a brain back in 2020 could see the messaging that was coming out from the govt and NHS was going to come back to bite society in the bum.

Making everyone who was.perfrctly healthy and covid going to be nothing worse than a cold anxious about their health was ridiculous!!

Anyway, we clearly need more GPs but we also need people able to manage their own health better.

Just watch a couple of episodes of "Ambulance" on BBC1 to see the utter nonsense people call 999 for.

Surely people who are in A&E are going to be anxious about their health?

They aren't going to be nonchalant, are they?

I have two friends who work in different GP practices. One is a GP one is an advanced clinical practitioner. On one day the ACP saw about 30 people who all had a cough of various kinds. Only 2 needed medical treatment, in fact they needed to be admitted as they had seriously low oxygen levels and underlying conditions. Most should have spoken to the pharmacist at most for self care as they needed to have hot drinks, to maybe have an expectorant and to just be a bit less panicked. She said some had literally had it for 24 hours and had no other symptoms.
The GP said she sees a lot of people with health anxiety or what is known as "shit life syndrome". There's nothing medically wrong but they need reassurance. They have been referred for CBT but don't attend and get discharged. My husband's best friend keeps booking appointments for what he thinks are heart problems. He's had all the scans all the tests, halter monitor etc. There are no heart or lung issues. He has anxiety and panic attacks but won't accept this and keeps going back to his GP and is now paying for the same tests to be done again privately.
You see the people on here with health anxiety and others suggesting "A&E now!" for self limiting or minor illnesses. I had flu last month. I felt shit for a week and I'm still deaf due to blocked eustachian tubes. It's annoying and I wish it would go but it won't and I just have to wait it out.

2020-2021 I kept attending A&E as I felt something was seriously wrong and my GP just wasn't getting it. I had to go as there was no where else!
Daily headaches leaving me in bed and waking me up feeling like my skull was being crushed.
My hair started falling out, as in massive patches of hair missing and I felt like I had bugs under my scalp.
I fell quite unexpectedly, losing my balance walking and ended up with a fractured elbow.
I was also gaining weight like crazy, lost all energy and had constant brain fog and fatigue.
Each and every time I'd sit down in A&E feeling like a fraud as it was either an Accident or an Emergency, but I wasn't exactly healthy either.
My GP just kept saying take some paracetamol, rest, blah blah blah. They even said I was depressed and referred me to talking therapy. No blood tests, no face to face consults.

In October 2021 I had this episode of vomiting, I couldn't keep any kind of liquid in and needed rehydration. No stomach bug just vomiting 18 times in 8 hours. In A&E that day they were doing HIV screening and I consented to blood being taken. I got my rehydration and anti-emetic, felt instantly better and went home shortly after.
2 weeks later I received a phone call from the specialist GUM clinic asking me to come in and repeat my bloods. I went in and was told my blood had tested 'reactive' for a marker in HIV. They needed to test me again, meanwhile asking me about my sexual history and general health. What followed was the most stressful period of my life, as that test also had to be repeated and I was convinced I was HIV positive. Turns out, after a few blood tests I didn't have the virus, I found out 2 weeks before Christmas 2021. But I did have something, and the Dr's at the GUM clinic were not able to say what.

Long story short, I have an autoimmune disease which I'm certain is what killed my mum back in 2000 at the age of 31. She went very ill very quickly and had the exact same symptoms as me. I was at the time also 31 and petrified.
It's a few years on, and I still don't have a name for what I have, but I know I'm not healthy. I know I take alot of medication to treat symptoms. The brain fog has gone, I can actually concentrate on work, my hair is regrowing (it's no where near as thick and my hairline is at least 2.5cm higher than before) and I've lost lots of weight thanks to mounjaro.

Because of my 'health anxiety' I am alive. This 'health anxiety' told me to sit in A&E to get help.

there are so many reasons people present at A and E when they don’t need to. Off the top of my head some reasons may be

1. Inappropriate signposting to hospital for safety reasons
2. recent immigrants who are ether not registered with a GP or who culturally present at hospital when they are sick in their country
3. anxious parents, who go straight to hospital rather than their GP or a pharmacist for advice
4. families who over react. I can think of a friend whose family go to the hospital for the most minor ailments. The grandmother does it, the mother does it and now the children do it. So none of them have learnt what a correct response to illness is and over react to the slightest symptom.

Ha ha! Actually I have chronic migraine, am under neurology, have been under other clinics in the last few years and have chronic rhinitis for what that's worth. I also have complex dental issues, no NHS dentist and no money for private care.

I advocate for myself and would never accept being turned away from the GP surgery if I needed help.

The NHS website and google in general doesn't help.

My one year old has a horrible cold and last night, I noticed her hands were cold.

Without the internet I wouldn't have thought anything of it.

But if you google that it comes up with sepsis as an option and you end up down a rabbit hole.

We didn't go to a&e, saw the GP today, but I can absolutely see why someone might have gone to A&E.

Similarly, if you're ill at the weekend, it's basically A&E or nothing.

ACPs are a part of the problem. Had I been seen by a GP I might have been referred sooner.

Get treatment for your anxiety. Wasting A&E staff time is abhorrent.

I did the opposite, I ended up with organ damage because I was so scared to use NHS resources and felt like everyone else needed it more than me.

@SunnyViper I think it's abhorrent that you can't get mental health treatment in this country unless you can afford to go private.

I think it's abhorrent that people with health issues are now being told they're the problem, when they just want help with their health.

Errr, yes

The treatment is through talking therapies. All NHS services for common mental health problems including OCD & health anxiety are called NHS talking therapies where the evidence based treatment for health anxiety and OCD which is CBT is provided.

I have been diagnosed as having health anxiety and needing CBT and talking therapies. I am on a list... the list is 27 weeks long.

I can imagine I will end up in A&E during that time.

I suspect that some of these people with 'health anxiety' are actually ill but haven't been diagnosed with anything yet. I'm quite sure some of the crap doctors I saw over MANY years dismissed me as having health anxiety when I actually had fucking multiple sclerosis.

Agree. Ours actually has signs up reminding people that it is a department for people who have suffered an accident or or experiencing a life risking emergency, if none of these apply to you then please leave and speak to your GP/pharmacist/call 111. I mean you'd think it would be obvious but...

Before anyone shouts at me for cluttering the place up, I was there with a very broken arm. So fitted firmly into the first category.

You seek support for the anxiety through NHS talking therapies not use GPs and A&E for managing your health worries

Ah, if only the OP were the Triage Nurse for the whole NHS, making informed assessments from a trolley, all would be well with the NHS...

Yep! We had to rush my DS in as his school thought he had swallowed a button battery (he has a severe learning disability) and the lady in front of us had brought her daughter in (in school uniform) as she had a sore throat!

Health anxiety is not an accident or an emergency though

@Marmalade1987 what support? There isn't any unless you can pay.

As @Jabtastic has said, we're actually unwell. I have something that is such an easy fix. It can be sorted with a 45 minute surgery. The reality is I won't get it because I'm overweight (despite having lost 6 stone in a year) and because they'll decide the money can be used elsewhere.

So I'll continue to have antibiotics three times a year, multiple GP appointments and probably end up in debt to pay for it privately.

But I'm the issue!

If people were able to see their GPs easily I think the problem would improve almost immediately.

Not sure about that. I went to mine and he told me to pull myself together. Took me 2 years to go back by which time the anxiety was crippling.

111 doesn't help. They always seem to say go to A&E.

I have been pretty lucky with my A&E experiences. I've generally looked around the room and thought everyone looked in a right state.

My "health anxiety" was a brain tumour. You have no right or ability to judge why someone is seeking medical advice.

For health anxiety, I think knowing that you could see someone and get treatment if it became necessary would be something. But it doesn't help someone who is worried today, and knows any GP appt is weeks away (if at all).

Some issues need fast treatment, and I'd imagine these are the illnesses anxiety will focus on. So I can see why it happens.