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

It's hard to judge what people are coming in for. I get anxious being a patient due to a phobia and due to that they said health anxiety and discharged me. I actually had a significant saddle PE that my gp caught - i would have died if he hadn't caught it.

my daughter was one of those people they said was health anxiety and sent to go home, like 6 times!

the 6th time they told her she’s fine, she burst out in tears. imagine suffering so much and being told it’s all in your head and you are imaging things.

Then year later when deteriorated further, collapsed unconscious and couldn’t move even her fingers. Diagnosed with a heart condition and a neurological/brain condition!!!

she is currently in a wheelchair!!

going online, I read so many stories of people just like her, sent home and told anxiety, then it turned out to be something serious. Or nearly died.

btw op, how do you know these people you see don’t need help and are not seriously suffering? Because they look fine and healthy??

guess what, so does my daughter, when she attended the hospital she looked very healthy and fine. Did not look sick at all.

So do millions of disabled people.

you do know invisible disabilities exist right??? Remember, not every disability is visible!

Yes obviously seek help if things worsen but people use it as a GP service.

So what should they do when you can’t get a gp appointment, the pharmacy tell
you they can’t help you, and 111 tell you to go to A&E for a gp issue?

😆😆
Its amazing the things you can do with just ‘belief’ isn’t it?

There is. All areas in England have a local talking therapies service free to access

But nobody wants to help.

I remember being sat in my GP 7 years ago, in pain and they said "oh it's due to your weight"

Okay, cool. "Can I have some help?" I asked.

"No, sorry. Calorie count and get on with it."

For seven years. While I was in pain everyday, while I was unwell everyday. My immune system was fighting a chronic infection every damn day. I had a couple of weeks after each bout of antibiotics that I would feel 'normal'.

I was running on empty, for six years, until I got the referral for ENT since then. I have managed to lose weight in the last year, only due to the availability of weight loss injections in the UK. Without them, I don't think I would be here. Because nobody was interested in helping.

Be sick for seven years straight, and then say it's that easy.

I referred myself and was turned away. They don't.

Yes. I developed an extensive blood clot in my leg a couple of months ago. Didn't know what it was so popped into the pharmacist who told me that I needed to phone NHS 24 and not be put off by the 60 minute waiting time because I needed to be seen. I cannot fault the NHS care I got which included seeing an out of hours GP, my own GP, staff at the Same Day Emergency Care unit plus regular telephone follow up calls.

I had shingles on my face. I didn't know it was shingles. It was agony. Went to the GP (1), he told me to take ibuprofen and chill (not his actual word, obviously!). This went on for a bit longer (days), the lumps joined together into a huge lump up one side of my face. I looked like the elephant man. I had an online consultation (2). Told to continue the ibuprofen. Dr. didn't know it was shingles either.

Over the weekend it got worse, it had started to swell up in my ear and eye. I had issues moving my mouth and couldn't open my eye all the way. I went to A&E on Sunday (3) and waited 11 hours to be seen. They dismissed me with only a cursory examination. Saw the GP again on Monday (4), who fast tracked a consultation to hospital that day (5). At which point they cut the thing open to drain.

I didn't go due to health anxiety. I sat in A&E because I was in agony, thinking I had sepsis or something. But because the GP didn't take it seriously I ended up there.

I guess I was lucky I was actually able to access my GP at all. I know many can't. But people who need treatment are being left to try to cobble care together where they can.

They do - 16 weeks is meant to be the maximum wait for “first contact” - triage phone call - and then there is no limit on the wait for therapy. Tens of thousands of people wait for over two years.

There is a very good NHS website which has common conditions on it and clear advice as to what to do for yourself, where to go and what counts as an emergency.

That's where you start.

Then there is pharmacists who can see, assess and offer treatment or advice for people - easy to access. Free

Try that

Then there's 111 - able to assess and advise from everything from a blister to a stroke. - Totally free, including access to translators/talk to speak.

Plenty of first aid advice learning from St Johns ambulance - everyone should make themselves familiar with this - Free on the internet.

Some services can be self referral - talking therapy, some physiotherapy etc .

This needs to be done before rushing to GPs and A&E.

same as the home education regulations
a man who was violent was given charge of his daughter but now it is the fault of random home educating families out there (????)

Goodness, Could be a tumour

I think unless literally at death's door, you should've had to have come through 111.

If you turn up at A&E not via an ambulance & not from 111 and aren't in an "immediately rush to resuscitation" type situation, receptionist should tell you to go outside & call 111.

111 should be able to "refer" people to A&E. Of course there'd by stuff to sort out in this system but generally something like this needs to happen

Completely agree. Usually the people I see have been referred as there isn't a physical illness and they meet the criteria for HA, or they are ill but have specific HA or OCD different from the "functional" anxiety you'd expect to have if you were ill iyswim.

The problem is ultimately that we have a broken system (full of often very dedicated people trying to make it work). This means delayed or misdiagnosis happen and it means little timely or appropriate MH support. I feel very sorry for anyone coming up against a lack of support for physical or mental health problems and I feel very sorry for the people trying to provide care.

Then why do some people seem to take the entire family with them?

This isn’t health anxiety though. This is being let down by primary care for management of sinus issues and you’ve had to rightly so go to a&e when presenting very unwell.

people with health anxiety don’t have anything wrong with them that a&e can help with there’s nothing to treat

You really are talking complete and utter nonsense.

@Marmalade1987 it leads to health anxiety though. Every headache I get has me worrying. Every cough, sniffle, slight temperature. I have a shooting pain by my eye, it's caused by the septum issue. But what can I do? Nobody is interested in actually treating me.

We’re beyond the point of just being able to say that A&E is for accidents and emergencies only, and we have been for some time.

The health system is broken. Hospital managers block change. Lots of changes in the last twenty years have had predictable knock on effects on the whole system. It needs to be completely changed with a new model that works.

Actually I’d extend this to say that most government run organisations are failing and need to be rebuilt and run by people who have experience of carrying out jobs throughout that sector.

As for the health minister, what a joke. I wouldn’t trust my goldfish with her let alone the NHS!

I would like to point out that people always criticise the GPs for the fault in A&E and lack of appointments, but it is the fault in our government that have cut GP spending so they can't afford to get enough salaried GPs in. It's the same for weekends which GPs do now have to offer appointments for, they have to be shared between multiple practices because the uplift in money to provide these services wouldn't even pay the bills for individual practices to be open on weekends.

Yes it really has become somewhere to take everyone while one person with a minor illness 'gets checked over as it might be sepis, a perforarion or a brain bleed'. No, it's a cold.

That's what NHS 111 online (or over the phone) is for.

I agree to a point but there are situations when you need a&e and you aren't at deaths doors. My child gets croup a lot which is always worse in the night. He needs steroids and unfortunately it's always a trip to a&3e..

People who attend A&E with mental health difficulties, including self-harm and suicidal ideation, make up 3-5% of total A&E attendees. They are frequently told they are wasting A&E time, which makes them feel it’s pointless to attend again. The suicide rate is at a 25-year high. It’s the main cause of death in men under 50.