in thinking that some/alot of people go to A and E without a good reason

[ghostspirit]

im just wathing 24 hours in a&e and a mum took her child to hospital because he has hayfever. also i see loads of posters at bus stops it says things like have a back ache, see your GP do not do to a&e. seen a few other similar things. is this because there are a lot of people going to hospital when they don't need to or is it just a general thing to make people more aware.

ghost how can you say they were all good reasons with stories like mine, my son in isolation on a cardiac ward because he has a cold (would you agree a cold should be treated in hospital?) several stories of children with nothing wrong that turned out to be leukemia? there are people who abuse it outright but then there are so many borderline cases.

I was just thinking how I'd take my daughter to gp in the morning and he'd say "she has a cold but before you go to A&E this evening give her this prednisone and start these ABx and do you have enough calpol?" because he knew this morning's cold was this evening's fighting for life for a week.

The only time I've taken myself to A&E was for a sore wrist/thumb. I'd slipped over and 4 days later I could still barely move it. It was my right hand & I was supposed to be revising but couldn't write any notes! Turned out to be the smallest fracture of my thumb barely registering on the x-ray but nevertheless needed more than just the sport wrist support I'd been making do with. Because I needed xrays there really wasn't anywhere else I could go with my accident injury but should definitely have been prioritised lower than an emergency (as I'm sure I was). Wish I'd gone during the day instead of waiting till the evening though. All sorts come out at night! Felt very sorry for the staff dealing with aggressive people with blood pouring from their head . But I think low level accidents like mine could be dealt with separately from real accidents e.g car crashes in a lower level unit?

111 will say A&E if thats the appropriate outcome based on the information they have. They can also advise Ambulance, walk in centre, Doctors (OOHs or daytime) and advise on timescale when you should attend (Immediatly, within 24 hours etc) They can also advise on emergency dental or pharmacy services.

Depending on where you live, some now book appointments for you.

I have had Ambulance call outs and Doctor phone backs ,as well as discussions with the clinicians. They have not always been the outcomes I expected, and not always needed - but reflecting back, they acted in the bext interests given the information to hand and prbaby saved me a few trips to A&E and NHS money.

Nancy it's all very well saying 'see a pharmacist', but they are very little help with kids; they can't give anything which is prescription only, which is virtually everything for under 6's (I didn't see programme, don't know how old boy is).

Not sure what the legal position on Piriton syrup is, do remember getting the spanish inquisition last time I tried to buy it because some people use it to knock DC's out...

3LittleFrogs my previous GP did this, my current one won't.

I don't know why, other than that he said he wanted to be able to see me himself to decide whether I needed the antibiotics.

Which would be fine if I could actually get an appointment when I needed one.

Ghost I don't know what to think about my reasons for going.

I need the antibiotics urgently, I don't think it's good that I have to go to A&E to get them.

If I don't have them, I know I'll end up in hospital shortly afterwards anyway, but at the point I am sitting there in A&E I know at that moment I'm not actually the sort of patient they are intended to treat.

just because i stared the thread does not mean i have the answers... the thread was more of is there anything init type of thing. ie with all the posters i have seen such as have a back ache see your gp. and that sort of thing. there are others but i cant remember what they were

seems from the thread people go because they need to. but then on the other hand there have been people that work in hospitals that have said there are alot of people there that do not need to be.

and it seems it also depends where you live depends on was services are avalible.

Thats one of the reasons I have been pushing the 111 service Ghostspirit. In addition to being able to assess, they have the local knowledge about services, so they can direct you to what is available in you specific area.

My DH is working in A&E on the afternoon/evening of Sunday 28th and on New Years Eve. I was commiserating saying poor thing working on New Years Eve. Cue blank look! New Years Eve is going to be quiet compared to Sun 28th which will apparently be busiest in day in years as GPs will have been shut for 4 days by the time he gets to work!

Also think you can't tell a 'genuine' A&E case from appearances.

Ds1 has been blue lighted to A&E twice. Once at 2, and the people in A&E would have seen me walking a perfectly fine looking 2 year old in with the paramedics, running around and chatting...but I'd called 999 as he'd had an extended febrile convulsion, which lasted 6 minutes and took over 10 minutes for him to 'come around' from.

The second time was when he was 4 and suffered sudden, severe onset abdominal pain (screaming and vomiting in agony). By the time he was rushed through A&E, again he looked fine and was merrily chatting and playing...but he was being rushed in for tests and was only apparently 'fine' because he'd been given morphine the pain was so bad.

ghost I don't agree that everyone on this thread went because they had to. Lots of tingling mummy senses that worked out they needed it but they were still going in with things like a cold. my son has now been in a week on his cold and is still in isolation, we called an ambulance because he had a cold. I'm not being facetious, he has a cold.

New Years Eve is normally quiet up until midnight as everyone is out. I worked on A&E reception and I'd say about 30% of the people didn't need to be there, they could have gone to the GP, and this was in a town with an unnatural number of GPs and a brilliant out of hours service.

Someone once moaned that there was such a long wait and he just needed some paper stitches, I was so tempted to say that he could walk round the corner and buy said steri strips in Superdrug. One day there was a re-attender with back ache, he was trying to claim compensation after a car accident and was basically putting it on, he got caught out as he saw the same Dr as the first attendance. He was threatening to go home and call an ambulance and come back as he thought, like so many people, that he'd get seen quicker.

We had a whole host of frequent flyers that we knew by name, and they'd come in at least twice a week.

I've gone to A&E quite a few times myself but have always been admitted. On one occasion when they hooked me up to the monitor and saw my oxygen levels the nurse asked if I'd been given oxygen in the ambulance, I had to tell her no as I'd come on the bus!

Mil had an ambulance called for her by the cancer ward she stayed in 50 miles from home.
She was running a slight temperature and they wanted her there quicker than fil could get her there, as they knew that any infection could be deadly for her following chemo.
The ambulance turned up and the paramedic moaned non-stop all the way at pil, they refused to rush as she was apparently well save for a slight temperature. Pil were accused of using the ambulance as a taxi service.
They stuck to the speed limit regardless of their instructions from the ward.

Because mil arrived at hospital late on a Friday night, there was only skeleton staff over the weekend so she didn't receive the correct treatment until after the weekend.

She died 2 weeks later. No-one knows if the speed she got treatment contributed to her death.

Confuddled, hope your ds is feeling better soon and home for Christmas

Last Christmas DH drove me to A&E at around 2am after I suffered from severe chest pain and had collapsed on the bathroom floor. When we arrived at hospital I explained to the doctor when the pain started and how it felt. He immediately diagnosed me as a "time waster with heartburn" and sent me home in floods of tears while continuing to shout at me as I was leaving that "people like me are the reason genuinely poorly people die" I was horrified and cried all the way home.

The next day I collapsed on the drive way and was blue lighted to hospital. It actually transpires that I had gallstones and the earlier pain was from a stone caught in my bile duct which had subsequently ruptured my gallbladder.

To this day I still can't get that doctor shouting at me out of my head

I was vilified elsewhere on line for suggesting you should only go if you're at deaths door but I stand by that view. Sadly loads of people use it as an out of hours GP service which i regard as morally wrong. The only times we've been have been when the GP has said get there right away and it was an emergency and then we were triaged right to the front of queues and the service was excellent.

If we required a £10 payment that you clock in with a credit card when you enter a turnstile we might stop the time wasters, 100% of it to go into nurses' pockets free of tax.

there are things that are a valid use of a&e without being at deaths door.

What about broken bones, or suspected broken bones? Usually not life threatening but if you were a martyr and waited a couple of days for a GP appointment all they would do would be to send you to a&e for assessment.

If you don't go to a&e for that sort of thing where do you go? There is nowhere else that deals with it.

Similarly if you have a problem that even a few hours could escalate it into something much more serious. You're not at deaths door but waiting until the GP opens tomorrow could mean the difference between a full recovery and lifelong complications. Surely that's not timewasting?

DS wasn't at deaths door last night when he went to a and e. But that trip meant we caught a potentially serious infection early and treatment was able to be started promptly. He narrowly missed being admitted so if we had waited until he got worse to go in then there is a high chance (according to the doctor we saw) he would have ended up needing to be admitted.

How about a walk-in centre within walking distance of all A&Es? Or even on the same premises?

I've never been at 'deaths door' when taken to a&e but I have been in serious need of urgent medical attention. Should I have driven to my GP with stroke symptoms got him to prescribe the morphine and anti sickness, driven home and self administered? I know I'm having a Migraine but other people don't, to them I'm having a stroke. My stroke risk is increased due to these so I have to get checked just in case it is one! So no. To me a&e isn't just for deaths door

mostHighly - a lot of London hospitals already have this

Yeah that's stupid. A&E isn't only for people at death's door.

My dd needed stitches recently for a big gash in her leg which would have probably became badly infected if I had left it. She wasn't at death's door but it would be pretty neglectful for me to leave her with a gaping wound. It's not like a GP would have stitched it up. What else was I meant to do with her Greengrow?

Your opinion is nonsensical.

I am pretty sure my nan wasn't dying when she broke her hip, but considering how dangerous a broken hip can be for the elderly and how painful what should we have done with her? left her at home because she wasn't at death's door?

You haven't thought out your opinion at all have you? and besides, incase you didn't know the A in A&E stands for accident ;)