How long in a chair in a&e?

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

My DH has been diagnosed with a perforated bowel. We've been in urgent care/a&e since 1pm. He doesn't care if they nurse him on a corridor, but he just wants to lie down. He's in a chair and exhausted and in pain. Lying down relieves the symptoms (he discovered when he had an ecg).
There's no sign of a bed for him. I asked about a trolley - no, none of them.
How long is it acceptable to leave someone in a chair? My head's a shed, can't think straight. I've had a hell of a week with my DF after collapsing and having CPR. He's been diagnosed with encephalitis and it's life changing. So having spent Monday night doing a 3 hour dash to my dad, then 3 days down with him. Coming back home and my DH becoming unwell today... I'm an emotional wreck. I just need a sense check on what's normal.

14 hours on a drip on a chair here. Then a night on a trolly by the loos.
Can you get a relative or friend to drop off a blanket or pillow?

This sounds absolutely terrifying, I'm so sorry. Sometimes in hospital I have felt like you literally have to start screaming before anyone will even notice you are there.

I have spent 24 hours on a chair in A&E before AFTER they decided to admit me, because it took that long to find a free bed.

My DC are still tiny, my parents are now getting older and I am honestly terrified of the thought of these incidents in A&E with any of them. Just praying for the introduction of some private A&E units in the next few years. I know we shouldn't have to have them and its unfair but I genuinely don't see NHS A&E units getting any better any time in the forseeable future.

It’s totally this. Prevention is better than cure - and cheaper -

but instead of focussing on primary care to stop the unnecessary and expensive a&e visits after it’s too late or cos people can’t see a healthcare professional earlier in their illness the acute system is under massive strain and cannot cope.

it’s like shutting the stable door after horse has bolted.

the majority of people accessing a&e don’t need to be there and we know this - but they are there because they have nowhere else to go or they do need to be there and are only there because they didn’t get adequate care earlier on

its Just so lucky really that the OP was able to accidentally speak to the oncall anaesthetist and bed manager and also refused to take him home after they tried to kick him out.

yes presented with CE and they just assumed due to previous hx it was recurrent condition - no scan to check and sent home. damage was done

It must be 20 years ago now, but I was once on a course with an NHS manager.

He had costed the entire admin process for getting approval and ordering a new fridge for storing samples. It came to just shy of £500, to buy a fridge that cost £200 from an "approved provider". It could have been bought in Currys for around £50.

I was working in local government at the time. When we needed a new fridge, someone went and bought one and claimed the £50 or so back on expenses. NHS manager was gobsmacked.

"The bigger issue is that there are too many trained nurses who don't accept that working nights comes with the job. That creates a circle of poorer care because the gaps have to be filled somehow."

This is a really short sighted view. There are thousands of nurses who would love to work and can't because NHS Trusts insist on a 'fully flexible' workforce. If they were to offer a better mix of days, nights, short days (which is still 8 hours), long days and twilight shifts, they would have a full workforce.

I have children with SEN. My eldest is adult now but still has to have an adult in the house at all times. DH works 7-3.45. That means that I can't do early shifts, can't do night shifts (don't get back in time), can't do late shifts (shift starts too early), can't do long days. What I could do is a twilight shift - 5pm-4am, or 5pm-1am. It would mean they have nursing staff over the evening handover period, settling to bed, night time drugs, turns, early morning jobs, etc.

But they're so wedded the idea that scheduling is easier if they make everyone 'fully flexible' that they lose the staff who can't do nights, or can't do weekdays, or can't do the 4th Saturday of every month, etc. It's all or nothing and good nurses are forced to choose nothing.

Some of the stories on this thread are horrendous and I'm so sorry for the bad experiences people have had. I'm glad your DH is in a bed now OP.

Just wanted to add I had a good experience of my nearest a&e in August. Went in around midday on the Wednesday, almost straight on a trolley, admitted and given a bed around 2:00am on Thursday and was taken down for surgery around 8:30am.

I appreciate even more how lucky I was after reading this thread

But, the population is increasing because there are more old people than there used to be, particularly Boomers who are now in their 70s and 80s. There's a widening imbalance of service users and providers. The "imported" people include a large proportion of healthcare and care workers of working age, who have been intentionally recruited from overseas, it would be much worse without them. You can't expand the NHS without staff, that's why the Nightingale hospitals during Covid were a flop.

But why didn't we increase the numbers of medical schools and training places over the past few decades? It's obvious that population increase would cause this. We've been "importing" qualified doctors to fill the shortfall since the 1960s! That's more than enough time to double/treble medical schools/places or more. It's not as if the demographics are a surprise.

@NotMeNoNo could you not just have said there are more people in their 70s and 80s now, rather than interjecting the pejorative term "Boomers". It's unpleasant.

Yes of course the immigrants include valued health care workers. But the net increase in population the last two measured years was one and a half million. They aren't anywhere near all doctors and care workers.

Every time anyone points out that it's damaging the lives of people here already, we get this whataboutery of "but some of them are health care workers".

As an older person myself you'll have to excuse me for not dying. But I really didn't expect to get to nearly seventy and know I could be left to die in a chair in A&E if I got ill, a situation caused by goverment after goverment, starting with Blair and the worst betrayal by Johnson, allowing million upon million of people to live in the UK without providing doctors, hospital services and houses first.

We have trained doctors and nurses with no jobs - we no longer need to be importing many doctors and fewer nurses. But we give jobs to immigrants in preference to British trained people. There are threads on this on mumsnet. We also have trained doctors who cant get specialty training posts because there are not enough of them - and that includes posts to train a&e consultants and anaesthetists. The government does not wish to fund them.

This has been said for a while but threads on mn talk about training surplus as @anyolddinosaurpp

After F2 (so first two years being a doctor) is when doctors applying for a training pathway so GP, psych, neurosurgery, pediatrics, oncology etc. The issue is now competition ratios have gotten so high. This was because despite increasing med school places no long-term thinking was done and the training pathway positions were kept at the same number, so more med students becoming doctors but the training position didn't increase. So for some specialties it's like 12:1 or higher competition ratios. For example OBGYN had 4900 ish applications for 297 jobs this year. GP had 20,000 ish applications for 4900 jobs. So we have lots of people who would love to be in training, are qualified and can't get on. The numbers just don't work.
Whilist the government have plans to act on this increasing training number posts, it is nowhere near enough of an increase planned, and definitely way too little for how long they have said it will take.

After F2 this year so August time, around 50% of F2 doctors were unemployed. Some do locum work for F3, others are now going abroad. So we do have a lot of wasted doctors. That's why you see articles about people who applied for GP training, and didn't get in (passed all exams, good references, portfolio etc) and are now doing uber. It's the limit of training positions. Not really international doctors as they often have to start again so they may come at almost consultant level and have to do training all over again, they are somewhat increasing the number but not that much v other healthcare roles like social care where we need them and better hope they stay for now.

This article shows the numbers for 2025. 91,999 applications were made for the 12,833 specialty training posts available at CT1, ST1, St3 and ST4 training levels. An overall competition ratio of 7.17:1. This is a 54.1% increase in the number of applications compared to 2024.
https://www.specialty-applications.co.uk/competition-ratios/

This sounds awfully like blackburn royal , I was actually sent home mid heart attack 😳 then rushed back in when I attended the urgent care in burnley and my triponin results came back, I really hope your husband is getting the care he needs and that you are OK I'm sure you feel all over the place xxx

Bank staff at our trust are currently being given a pay cut which won't help.

Bank only staff are also not allowed in team fb groups so they have little to no access to updates/communications.

Student nurses/ midwives are doing 3 year placements and finding no job at the end of it. Why??

Constant house building and no expansion of services.

The future isn't looking bright.

I'd venture there would be a greater need for health services if houses were not built. Those who are homeless, in shelters and multi-occupancy sub standard homes are prone to disease.

Does the chicken come before the egg; or the egg before the chicken?

Loads of houses being built in my area no-one wants them prices have just been dropped

NHS surgeons are not allowed to do private work during their contracted NHS hours - and it is something they are audited on! If you want to see Mr X from your local hospital privately, you’ll find it’s on a set day or, more likely, after 6pm when they’ve finished their working day.

The only time this may be different is when their hospital runs it’s own private wing and the money generated goes directly into the hospital and not one of the big private providers (some of whom also have on site private care centres at NHS hospitals)

You would have to ban all private medical work for NHS consultants and GPs and force them to put the same hours into the NHS to change the waiting lists, it can't be done, it's an unfair restraint of trade.

What is wrong is that someone can pay £200-300 to see an NHS consultant privately and they can then bump them straight into their NHS clinic.

We have taken advantage of this twice in the last year because we were desperate waiting for NHS diagnosis without treatment in the meanwhile. I'm not proud of it, and it shouldn't be possible, but my own condition was threatening a stroke at any time. I'm just grateful I have the money.

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I stayed up late to read this entire thread. It's heartbreaking and incredibly worrying.

OP, how are things going with your poor DH?

If we did this is quite likely we'd lose those consultants to the the private sector full time, rather than spliting their time between both as they do at the moment. It's a dire situation.

Having used private healthcare quite extensively I’ve never been bumped into the top of an nhs list and I don’t believe it’s common practice and shouldn’t be allowed at all. The only situation would be that the private consultation revealed some urgent medical information that changed their position on the nhs list and the person had no means to pay for private treatment. In that situation i suppose there would be some level of duty of care that would mean the genie was out of the bottle and had to be acted upon.

If you had a private investigation and that revealed a life threatening situation then I imagine the NHS cant ignore that information and leave you in your original place on the waiting list. Doesnt mean you should go to the top but does mean they might need to review priority in the same way as they would if your health deteriorated and you developed new or worse symptoms.

I can assure you it's very common practice and a well known route to get your first appointment with an NHS ology. It's been happening for years, ever since the ban on copayments, having part of your treatment funded privately and part by the NHS, was lifted.

I agree with you that it shouldn't be allowed.