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.

It absolutely isn't allowed. Yes it happens but that means people aren't doing their jobs properly. I used to be an ops manager in the NHS and it certainly didn't happen in my department

It is allowed.

I was given a 5 month wait for an ologistafter a GP referral when my blood tests showed a clear need for drug treatment that the GP cannot prescribe. I paid to see the ologist who heads up the unit that I wanted to be referred to. Five months ahead of NHS schedule I was given a private prescription for the first drug and an appointment 7 weeks later under the NHS to start the blood tests for the second one, which needs constant blood tests. He did nothing whatsoever against the rules.

Lots of people pay for a private MRI, take the result to an orthopedics consultant and get placed onto their NHS list for knee or hip replacement months or even years ahead of when they would have even got a GP to agree to scan them.

It happens all the time for people who have the knowledge, the drive to do it, are close enough to a private hospital, and the money. If you can pay privately to get the diagnosis quicker, then the diagnosis gets you into the NHS system weeks, months or years ahead of struggling through a GP referral.

Yes but they won't jump the surgical waiting list, no matter what you think. The advantage is paying for the diagnostic procedure, but even that isn't too much of an advantage as their clock will start from the date they are referred, the same as the people who are referred by their GP.

If course you're allowed to move from private to NHS but it is highly unlikely to give you much, if any, advantage in a properly run service. You will only jump the queue based on clinical need...the same as everyone else

I didn't say they would. I have explained clearly, I thought, what the time advantage is. It's particularly advantageous in ologies where there is a waiting list to get on the waiting list, as I experienced this year and a nearly killed my OH two years ago.

Please tell me where to find a properly run NHS department, because there isn't one in the area I live in, they are all trying their best to treat too many patients.

From your answer i don't think you understand how many GPs are blocking diagnostic procedures before even reaching a referral and how many ologies have a wait list of months before you reach the top of the quite to be given a date for an appointment that might still be weeks or months away.

It was def the case ten years ago. I was desperate for a neuro appt and as we're in Wales, the waiting time was at least twice that England's was.

I found the name of the neurologist that worked out of my local hospital and found he also worked a day private out of spires and a day in Walton.

I spent £250 I couldn't really afford on an initial appt that I could have 2 days later. On the back of that he shoehorned me onto the end of his NHS clinic that week and then saw him there annually. Follow up scans and tests happened in Walton and I got a cancellation appt.

Ethical. Probably not.

But it got me the right meds and my life back quickly.

How is your husband OP?

How are things?