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.

Well Tony Bliar went some way towards breaking it, yes, with the wholesale embracing of the PFI. However, it isn't politicians who roll their eyes at patients, it isn't politicians who publish Nice guidance, it isn't politicians who allow toxic teams to fester, although I grant you, they should never have allowed the GPs to bunk out of house calls and providing 24 hour care as family doctors.

this is absolutely distressing and horrific to read. Normally I don’t wish journalists to use a story on MN to report, but I sincerely hope this one gets picked up.
op I hope your OH is ok.

I work for a special NHS health board that provides teaching and training. One recent example of a complete waste of NHS money was procurement. We ordered 8 small teaching aids that retail at £1 each, and the central procurement hub charged us an admin fee of £100 to process the order. Multiply that by every order for every region. Someone is profiting from this.

@RosesAndHellebores i was told on another thread earlier tonight that womens experiences of hysterocopies without pain relief are inflammotory and incorrect.

Oh this fills me with dread. Every winter is worse and worse (trolleys in corridors/3 day a&e waits, near misses) and we are only in October.
What is January going to look like if it’s only just beginning and the chaos is at this level. I’m a nurse in ICU and we had at least 5 ward ready patients on my last couple of shifts- but the big elective cancer ops are getting cancelled because we have no icu beds free (bed blockers)

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5400268-to-think-that-if-you-cancel-on-the-day-with-the-nhs-you-should-be-put-to-the-bottom-of-the-list?page=21&reply=147970441

May I ask who the insurance provider is ?

@OrangemintcreamBlue Cross Shield BUPA, “Elite” cover I think

Too many huge hospitals run by ‘managers’ on salaries bigger than the PMs.
Managers who just have meetings, mainly to arrange more meetings and more admin work.
Unnecessary positions (diversity manager anybody).

No accountability. No discipline.
Nurses who think because they have a degree they are too important to wipe bums, feed patients, and do actual nursing.
Too much emphasis on employing non uk staff rather than making it easier for Uk staff to get jobs,
Too many administrative staff

Too much lax care - which leads to compensation which runs to billions.
An aging population - too many beds taken up by bed blockers,
Too many non uk people being treated and no payments taken/asked for -it’s not the NHS for the world.
No in-house catering/maintenance teams,
Everything takes too long because there’s got to be a fucking meeting about EVERYTHING.

Doctors who still think they are Gods,
Too much money thrown at it - the problem is the NHS is now simply a huge entity whose primary goal is to protect itself.
Then it protects those overpaid CEOs . Then the consultants/top level managers. Tgen the middle management/doctors. Then nurses, then HCAs/admin. Then the cleaners. Then last in the pile are the users -aka the patients. These are the least important cog in the wheel - and by god, it shows.

Pretending that ‘Katie’ the male nurse who now has lippy and a swingy pony tail is protected from ‘bigots’ who say ‘he’ about Katie hasn’t helped much either.
And, running it as if it’s a shoe shop with 9-5 hrs Monday to Friday.

Is that enough??

So sorry to read this, OP, but glad your DH finally got a bed. I hope all will be well

It's an absolute disgrace and noone should be minimising or normalising this. It's completely unacceptable and terrifying.
My mum worked as a nurse for over 40 years. She was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 75. Had her bladder removed and a few days later after returning home she developed an infection and was very unwell. She rang for an ambulance but was told it was a 12 hour wait so she took a taxi to A&E where she sat in a chair in agony for 48 hours. I'm still furious about it now.
Even when she was in hospital post surgery for having her bladder removed she was still in nurse mode chasing for meds that were not given when they were supposed to, helping other elderly patients who had been left to "rot". When it came to the day of discharge it was delayed because she had to wait for the DR to come round to give her a prescription. NHS is not fit for purpose.
I moved from the UK to Switzerland 5 years ago and we have to pay mandatory health insurance but it is incredible. It's not cheap, basic insurance works out at £350 per month for myself. But I'm so grateful and its one of my biggest reasons for not coming back to the UK. I've been to A&E here multiple times with various people in my family and the longest wait to be seen was 2 hours. Often it's 30-45 mins max. Everything works. Everyone is very professional, relaxed, happy in their jobs - totally different atmosphere.
Even when I had my c section it's 5 days min stay - you're not pushed out the door. The after care is also exceptional. There is no wait for a GP appt, can just walk in and get one the same day. My DH was told he needed a referral to a specialist and was able to walk into the specialists office and have an appt the same day. I waited 1 week for a scan once but that's the longest.
They need to massively overhaul the NHS. There are better systems out there. I'm sure people would prefer to pay for a system that works. Right now in the UK it just feels like you pay high tax and for what? Nothing works - everything is bad - NHS, Education, infrastructure, Housing. It's not like that everywhere.

The NHS is utterly shit. I can’t believe that people are so nostalgically attached to the whole NHS concept that they’re happy to accept the service we get, even though 90% of it is so dire. How has it come to this - that we think it’s acceptable to sit in A&E for hour upon hour waiting for medical assistance, or that apparently NHS dental treatment is no longer a right, or that a GP appointment is almost impossible to source most of the time. I just wish we had a government who was brave enough to formulate a replacement for the broken system we have. It may involve getting rid of large parts of the NHS and replacing it with partly subsidised private treatment, but surely anything has to be better than what we’re currently getting.

@Crapola25 - in Switzerland, if you can’t afford the €350 per month, is there any safety net for care?

I live in EA and the NHS service is pretty good.
I was recently on a ward for a day procedure and they really drew out the release, so a few of us (3) just went for it and left. The staff still had to do the paperwork but we weren't clogging up a bed. But if there were more nurses then they could be more efficient and that wouldn't need to happen. It's so sad.

My heart goes out to you op and your DH

💐

What a bloody nightmare

I agree with @Livelovebehappy on the NHS

It's rubbish, not fit for purpose and isn't working. We need something else.

And this doesn't negate from the value we give to the staff who work hard.

He can’t be in that much pain then.

Callous. I’m sorry you were unwell but your pain and how you handled it has nothing to do with OP’s husband’s awful current situation.

I think there’s some amazing people that work there, but whenever there’s a thread on here about really bad workplace bullying, someone always ask whether it’s the NHS and lots of times it is. They are always told to leave because it will definitely not get better.

In my experience, as long as possible in the hope you'll give up and leave. I had vertigo a few years ago, was vomiting blood and couldn't stand and they wouldn't let me lie down and then told me off for lying on the floor as I couldn't sit without fainting. Awful, uncaring people who get away with it because PROTECT DA NHS ANGLES.

Now I pay for private health insurance. I really hope your husband gets sorted out.

For 14 years we've had a government that was ideologically and personally committed to running down the NHS, their objective being to get it so bad that we'd fall out of love with it and accept paid-for replacements. These replacements would be provided by the US health insurance giants, who've been desperately trying to get their hands on the NHS for years.

I'm sure UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, Cigna &co are grateful for your support.

I realise this seems logical but it isn't always true.

I would rather risk dying at home in somewhat more comfort, able to go to the loo and change position...

Than spend days in hospital, pissing on myself, unable to change position, getting pressure sores that take months to heal, having the management of my chronic and varied conditions fucked up and dangerously mismanaged... and the last time that happened I was on a trolley in Majors..

I cannot sit on a waiting room chair, however if I am ambulanced in and my DP not able to drive for any reason, I am without my wheelchair. Not that that matters overly much as I've been told off for reclining it in the waiting room (takes up too much space), and threatened with being thrown out if I get out and lie on the floor, and twice had to send DP to track down my chair as it's been moved out of my sight and reach.

For many of us with complex issues and disabilities, the thought of endless days waiting treatment, whilst various other conditions get worse and more damage is done, on top of whatever acute issue is potentially sending us to A&E... it is just too much. If I am going to be in pain and then die, I'd rather do that at home!

Hail, hail. The conservative politicians broke it. Now as ever it's staff and this government picking up the pieces for the previous politicians incompetence and ideologically flawed aim to money grab for private companies, run by their mates. Lay the blame where it deserves to be laid.

I really wish people with zero medical knowledge would stop posting, I don’t understand how you can feel ok about posting when you know nothing at all?

It is entirely normal and reasonable to manage some perforations conservatively ie with antibiotics.

I’m absolutely not defending the shambles that is the current NHS, but DD got a non-emergency MRI scan on Easter Sunday, and there were plenty of others there too, so it’s not entirely true that it’s Mon-Fri only. I was really surprised about this appointment.
I work in NHS theatres. We are also not a Mon-Fri department, elective surgeries every day.
Every now and then I go down to a&e and it’s horrendous. The area I usually see is fairly calm but walk out onto the corridor and it’s just full of paramedic after paramedic standing next to trolleys of people waiting to handover their care. This then takes ambulances off the road too. It’s like a vicious circle. I don’t know the answers to solve the a&e crisis but the current state is disgusting.

Order a camp bed from a nearby Argos - where I live they deliver on the day or get an uber to collect and deliver.

The rot in the NHS starts with Blair changing GP contracts so they did not have to provide out of hours care. Following on it is now only possible to access care by three means. GP, 111 or A and E. It is most definitely not the right thing to do to turn up at A and E with something that is neither an accident or an emergency but if you are unable to get an appointment with a GP, 111 in my experience is next to useless then A and E is your only option.

The NHS needs major overhaul but no political party is brave enough to undertake that overhaul.
threads like this illustrate how frustrated and disappointed we all are with the service but any
call to make changes is met with absolute anger at making change to ‘our NHS’.