Piss take waiting in A&E for an very very long time,

[SubwayAllTheWay]

I had a very sore neck, couldnt move it and was getting shooting pains every 5 mins. As I was near the hospital, I went in at 11am today. I was seen at 3pm. So i had to wait for nearly four hours with shooting pains to the point I had to leave the A&E reception to shout out my pain.

AIBU that this time takes the mick? I know ambulances have priority but If it takes that long, I would have phoned for an ambulance because then atleast i would get seen early.

It took the piss because there were people who seemed to be happy, able to walk but a sore wrist and they got seen after an hour of being there.

I didnt go to the doctors as i was in so much pain i thought i might faint and A&E seemed better idea as they could do a scan and find out the cause.

I had a terrible day today, i had a trapped nerve in my shoulder, i was in so much pain i didn't know what to do, i was worried i was having a stroke. I took myself off to A&E, i coudlnt get anyone to look after my 2 year old daughter. I had to wait four hours, it was really horrible, my DD was getting fractious. Loads of people were going in before me but i did read the notice on the wall that said that people are triaged differently, may have appointments, being seen by different people etc. God it was awful, waiting so long. The doctor said i had a trapped nerve and ordered an ultrasound, by this time my DD had had enough so i asked if it could possibly be made for another day so that i could arrange childcare - God what a day, the staff at the hospital were run off their feet, i don't know how they do it!

Now you see OP, had you posted something like that im sure you would have had 13 pages of "oh you poor thing, how awful for you, i hope your neck gets better soon!"

He's getting better thanks! He had chest pains two weeks ago and was very poorly. Had phoned the ward and they said get him in ASAP. After a week on O2 and two weeks worth of IV's he is back to winding up his sister and being a cheeky monkey.

It amazes me still how fast children can go from fine to very sick. Literally a few hours.

Our A&E has a children's separate area which is good, but you still get parents who don't feel their child should wait (even if there is very little wrong with the child).

Glad Billie had open access too, children with specific illnesses should always be able to bypass the hell that is A&E, especially as they have so much to deal with.

If the pain had been that bad you'd have waited for the scan. My dd broke her leg and she waited 3 hours to be seen, then an hour for an x ray, then another hour to see a dr to look at the x ray.

They weren't tossing it off drinking tea, they were saving lives and seeing other idiots with sore necks who couldn't be arsed to go to their gp who had come in before you.

Accident and emergency not anything and everything.

Oh and my dad nearly died waiting to be seen in a&e. partly due to been triaged incorrectly but also due to having to wait six hours to be seen while slowly slipping into unconsciousness as there were lots of people with sore necks there that day and it was really busy.

When he did finally get seen he was rushed to ITU and didn't leave hospital for six months.

I went into A&E the other week when I wasnt sure I needed to be there. I thought I just had a bug (vomitting, abdominal pain and the complicating fact that I was 18wks pg). A friend called out a GP who insisted I go to A&E.

I was seen within 5 mins because I lost consiousness in the waiting area.

Thank god they prioritised me and didnt leave me collasped on the floor while they dealt with the trapped nerves and stiff necks.

How long did you expect it to take?! Considering you didn't have life threatening symptoms, I think you were seen relatively quickly.

When my DD was around 9 months, the out of hours GP sent her to A & E in an ambulance. She had an extremely fast heart rate, dangerously low oxygen sats and a high temperature. It was clear that she was really struggling for breath. When we got to A & E, there was a team of six staff waiting for her around a bed. I remember looking at their badges and thinking "I've never seen so many Doctors all in one place".

When you are sitting in the waiting room, bored & nursing your sore neck, that is the side of A & E you are not seeing and THAT is why it is there. It's called accident & emergency - that gives you a massive clue!

Why on earth didn't you call your GP's surgery & ask for an emergency apt for your neck pain, if you were so worried?

I've spent lots of time in A & E lately due to medical problems related to my pregnancy (I don't send myself there, the GP or midwife sends you to be assessed as part of a protocol they have for suspected blood clots). I take a book, sit down & expect to wait for at least 4 hours. I would much rather sit & wait while the Drs deal with really ill children, car crash victims, patients who have collapsed & stopped breathing... That is what they are THERE FOR.

Once I was taken past everyone at A and E, didn't have to wait, because I'd gone to the minor injuries / urgent care unit, at the local hospital, and they decided it was serious so called ahead to A and E at the big city hospital. I didn't have to be triaged or anything, the doctor was waiting for me.
(Isn't it awful that I can't even remember what was wrong? Too many hospital visits for me evidently.)

I am at the OP. What a fucking numpty.

How dare you whinge and moan about sitting there for a few hours with neck pain!!

Think you need to appreciate Wats going on behind the scenes whilst you were sat there!!

I had to listen to a man moaning about waiting to see a Dr about the knee pain he had been having for 2 months yesterday.

This was after my team had spent nearly an hour in resuscitation with a 16 year old boy, I then had to go to the relatives room to tell his poor parents he had died and then stand there whilst they identified him and your moaning about neck pain????

Well...you weren't an 'accident' or an 'emergency' case?! So all things considered, I'd say 4 hours was good!

Next time suggest finding your local walk in centre :)

subway,

sorry you had to wait so long, but that's the way of A and E.

i once waited for 8 hours to be seen, was triaged, given pain killers and told to wait, we waited, because that's what you do, i knew my injuries were not life threatening, but also knew they needed treatment, in the the waiting room were told that unless it was life threatening, it would be better for us to go home and seek medical attention in the morning, the reason for the delay, a multi car pile up. by the by, my injury, a partially dislocated knee and all manner of horrors in the joint. i was in a huge amount of pain, but did i stand there and scream and demand to be seen before the crash victims, you bet i didn't, i knew i was not likely to die from the pain, so we went home and visited our minor injuries unit the next morning.

fast forward to this year, 18 yr old DD put her foot down a hole whilst helping her dad, she was in agony, my dear freind, first on the scene and a retired gp suspected a fractured ankle, so an abulance was called, but only because we didn't dare try and move her ourselves, abulance car was sent, paramedic also thought a fracture, so leg was imobilised, gas and air was given, and he drove her to hospital, she was triaged, given pain relief and we waited in reception, we waited for 3 hrs before she went to x ray, another hour before she saw the doctor, lucky for her she had only torn ligaments,
did we moan about the wait, you bet we didn't.

on both of these visits we could see how rushed off thier feet the staff were, and how busy the unit was.

as a side note, on the second visit to A and E, the waitingroom screen ran messages about wait times, our hospital has a policy of treating those that can be turned around very quicky first to keep waiting times down, i.e, the cases that don't need to see a doctor and who can be treated by a nurse.

When DS2 chopped part of his finger off, A and E was having a very busy weekend and it was like a war zone in there. Obviously everyone is sympathetic when staff are doing their best.

However some people don't do their best, and it rapidly becomes obvious when GPs have to intervene and tell hospitals off for it, because their patients have deteriorated so badly and unnecessarily.

One blardy obvious solution is to put OOH GP services and A and E in the same place, and triage people that way, no? That surely would reduce the scope for mistakes and make it easier for patients to be shuttled between the two services, as necessary. Some places have done that and it seems an excellent idea.

I was sitting in the walk in center with DD who had shut her fingers in the door the other week, and there was a family sitting in the waiting room complaining that the walk in center was shit as their father had a broken wrist and the ambulance transfer to take him to the orthopedic docs at the hospital had taken 20 minutes and didn't they realise he was in pain and it was bloody disgusting!

he had waited 20 minutes to be triaged, 10 minutes for an x ray, 5 minutes for the results and 20 minutes for a transfer to a specialist center

and the family were saying the NHS is shit???

I'm grateful for a NHS system where we get excellent treatment and service and do not have to pay before a doctor will see us!

I took dd to A&E recently, it turned out she had fainted, but I had never seen anyone faint before. I rang my GP and asked for an appointment but they told me to take her to A&E.
we had to wait a little while, a few hours I think, but I was just grateful that I was able to take my dd somewhere to be checked.

With hindsight I would probably not even have rung the GP, but now I know what to do if it happens again so probably won't need to.

Basically there are two issues - the need to husband resources properly, and the expectations of patients.

It's not enough to be angry with people for not wanting to wait, as though it's 1940 or something. We have to design systems that make it easy for patients to want to co-operate in husbanding the resources, IMO, without things kicking off.

The idea of being triaged to OOH or A and E on the same site is one of these, however all too often OOH is in the middle of nowhere with no transport near it during the very hours it is needed, and on some occasions, poor quality locum doctors are used. There is often little regard given to tracking patient experiences of such services. Patients have not been consulted about the design, location, or hours of operation. Is it then surprising when they are reluctant to use such services? So if they are necessary, why not make them more patient friendly?

Similarly ill people are often anxious and this can come across as aggression. So we need to make waiting areas less stressful, and use non medical staff to reassure people they haven't been forgotten, which is basically all most people are worried about at the end of the day. It makes a massive difference when someone comes along and says "We know you are there, have you got everything you need for now, we're a bit busy with a collapsed person/multiple car crash/stabbing, bear with us". That's all it takes. Good professionals are excellent at seeing the person behind the complaint, and communicating well about the bigger picture.

I read something recently along the lines of, self-entitlement is expecting others to have compassion for you while you show no compassion for others.

I don't think it is unreasonable to go to A&E if you are in severe pain and a single parent to a 2 year old and in too much pain to be able to look after the 2 year old. To complain though about the wait, when you were clearly in a safe place if your fear of fainting or of worse did come true is certainly unreasonable. To presume that happy looking people were being seen by the same Dr who could see you is unreasonable. To think about calling an ambulance to jump the queue ahead of people with life threatening conditions is v.v.v. unreasonable.

Being on your own and in pain can really trigger feelings of feeling uncared for and maybe some of this was going on for you and sent you into imaginings that you were being put at the bottom of the pile? You really cut off your nose to spite your face by leaving before the scan. - and yes, I would have waited, no question, I would not have left, I have been to A&E 3 times in this country. Twice led to admission, once I probably was wasting their time but I was scared due to what had happened previously, I did wait a long time though on that occasion and did not complain because I had been triaged and was comforted by being told that my symptoms this time did not point to what put me in hospital previously.

Sounds like you'd find the world a happier place if you could rid yourself of the anger and resentment that comes through in your posts. Compassion for others, not thinking that others get a better deal than you, is a good place to start.

Hmmm, I do find it ironic that A&E has such long waiting times due to non emergencies like sore necks etc.

I've been to A&E a number of times with my neighbour who thinks that every time her child falls over and bumps something means a trip to A&E. Long wait times, for fairly obvious reasons. She still doesn't get it thought. I've only been to A&E once as a patient myself, and got to the front counter and was sent through immediately without stopping to fill in paperwork. I must have looked frightful!! They have to prioritise patients, and the fact that people don't get seen immediately is because they have forgotten what the E stands for - Emergency!

I know there's 13 pages worth of stuff to read, but the OP conceded pages and pages back that next time she'd think twice before going to A&E - people don't need to keep laying into her!

I think the NHS is brilliant and I am delighted that there is a system where it is the severity and urgency of your health need that dictates what happens, not your place in the queue or the size of your wallet.

Sounds like a normal waiting time tbh.
You have to remember the accidents they have coming in behind the scenes and people with breathing problems, meningitis etc that take priority over your trapped nerve.
My friend had to spend 4 hours with a suspected miscarriage!- the poor girl was worried sick for those four hours & bleeding, but thankfully her baby was ok.
To be fair op, a trip to the gp would have been more appropriate.