A&E experience 8 hours wait

[marshmallowmix]

Not been to A&E in a very long time....I am gobsmacked at what I saw. Liked we were into a war zone....

We waited 8 hours and gave up and went home at 5am as we had had no sleep and couldn't handle the wait time, we were sent after we saw the out of hours doctor at the hospital.

No update, so many people everywhere, place was not clean and had being patrolled by two security guards that looked like they had come form the Russian army...

Not a nice place to wait, so many people like it is madness....people sleeping on seats when did it get this bad.

We keep building little box flats near me 5 new developments which will add thousands to the area but the one hospital on its knees as is every other service but we keep building and no new hospitals/dentists/doctors/schools...

I despair at the utter state of the country... I knew it was bad but what I saw last night was horrific and eye opening....we are in serious decline much worse than I thought...the A&E visit just brought it all in to sharp focus...

I've since looked up the reviews of my A&E and they are terrible really terrible...it is very frightening to think when you are ill and vulnerable the standard of care and what is out there...🙁

Oh do fuck of!!

Sanctimonious or what !! Telling people what they should do…it wasn’t a while it was 8 hours!

He couldn’t sit any longer in a lot of pain on hard plastic chairs with no end in sight and likely would have been another 5 hour wait minimum…many others discharged too with wounds and all sorts…it was intolerable…nothing was working toilets drinks machine and squabbles over basics like wheel chairs to move people …never seen anything like it!

In what other country is this okay …sit all night in absolute hellish surroundings and think it’s ok…the nurse said I don’t blame you this isn’t a good situation …

It’s nothing short of terrifying if you have to go to A&E…then apologisers on here saying you should’ve not gone 🤬🤯.

People need to shout it from the roof tops it is shit it needs fixing …not quietly go oh ok my bad I shouldn’t have gone…

DH was unwell just before Christmas. He spiked a temperature of 39.8°c and went to bed. The next morning I took him to the GP surgery and a nurse practitioner was going to send him away with antibiotics and an inhaler. Fortunately, I'm a former nurse, so I pointed out to her that his HR of 100 was more concerning than she thought because his baseline HR is only 50. I asked if he'd be safe at home and thought he was more poorly than that.

When we got to A&E it was busy. He was triaged and the nurse commented that his fingers had gone yellow and she couldn't get an oxygen level and 'he probably had an infection'. I think she was too busy to think clearly. We went around to sit on the majors chairs, had an x-ray, then a few hours later they swept him into a room and said that actually he was quite poorly with a severe pneumonia. He needed IV antibiotics but they didn't have a bed for him. He eventually got a bed that afternoon. His CRP was 689.

I overheard the nurses talking about reporting his care on Datix. Because he's a fit young man, he didn't look at ill as he was.

When I had to take DD1 to hospital 2 weeks later, the triage nurse was the same nurse who triaged DH. She actually apologised and said 'I missed it. I should have noticed his blood gas results'.

Very busy departments mean that health professionals don't have time to think.

Ringing 999 simply gets you in the same A&E loop.
Your DH should have been admitted for angiogram from A&E as I was. Coronary artery was blocked to 94%. I have other heart problems as well so that might have speeded things up.
I can only assume they do not think your DH is at risk of heart attack or they would not have him waiting 15 months!

Nothing new. I worked in A&E 25 years ago. In those days the target was less than a 12 hour wait. Its full of patients who need to be dealt with elsewhere such as mental health patients, elderly, those without GP, cancer patients etc. Its still dreadful. Waited 12 hours for DH to be admitted 2 years ago and 7 hours 3 weeks later with the same issue.