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.

Whenever we have taken ds to a and e, he has always been seen straightaway and often admitted to the children's ward so although it has never turned out to be anything serious it clearly could have been.

People do lots of things when they could use other options....go to doc when could see pharmacist and so on.

The a and e system grades you when you walk in, and if your complaint can be seen elsewhere they will direct you elsewhere, they will put you at the bottom of the wait pile if necessary.

tallulah I agree NHS direct does send you to a and e when could have been seen by out of hours instead, severa times they have called ambulance too.

Itssmaller no species of grass or tree flower in Dec in the UK so hayfever symptoms could be due to other allergies or a different condition altogether. Nest to get it checked out ( but not in A and E)

I feel bad now about all the 'don't go to A&E if what you need is a dentist' stories, because that's the only time I've been. To be fair I did know they wouldn't be able to fix it, but was going really out of my mind with the pain, and over the counter stuff wasn't touching it.

I turned up, burst into tears and begged them to put me out of my misery until my dental appointment the next morning. Which they didn't, they told me to go home. Though the nurse was nice about it and said she knew what dental pain was like. But yes I am still a little bit bitter about it. I wanted HARD DRUGS. I bet they were just too busy with a chipped nail woman.

Though that particular episode was filmed in July, so hay fever can be an issue. I know mine is then. I think the boy in question had pretty swollen eyes, and whilst he may not have needed to visit A&E in many peoples' opinion, I don't think it was particularly unreasonable. Mine have, a handful of times, swollen so badly I've been totally unable to see and it did warrant a visit each time for IV antibs and antihistamine.

Yes a lot of people do attend for stupid reasons. I always contact my out of hours gp if i feel something needs attention and let them make the decision whether its for a&e or if they can treat it.
Its also time wasters that put other peoples lives at risk...i was sent by my gp to a&e with severe stomach and back pain and vomitting i couldnt walk and was throwing up every few minutes i had to sit in a waiting room for 12 hours with other people around me who seemed to have little or nothing wrong with them...i was then discharged without much investigation as there were no beds and they were very busy.....about 6 hours after discharged i was blue lighted back in an ambulance after i fell unconcious ....turns out i had a very serious kidney infection that had spread into my blood stream and had the onset of septecemia thankfully i was treated swiftly and after a few weeks in hospital i was back to health again but i cant help but feel if some people with no immediate reason to be in a&e the night before had stayed at home id have got the proper treatment then and it wouldnt have progressed to a life threatening scenario !

I've only ever been to A&E for me six times in 40+ years, 5 of those were for broken bones (or suspected broken).

I did get one visit via ambulance but I didn't call for it, a passerby did after I got run over by a motorbike. Its an interesting way to travel even when you don't get the blues and twos

I took one of my colleagues to A&E recently as they had an anaphylactic reaction. Despite arriving by cab, she was seen straight away and treated within a very short space of time. The lovely Dr we saw made it clear I'd done the right thing as it was an extreme reaction and had the potential to be life threatening.

My general rule of thumb is does it feel broken/is it hanging off/spurting blood/can't breathe/chest pain then go to A&E. If it doesn't fit any of those then see the GP which is easier said than done given the stupid way my surgery have implemented the appointment system - I can only book a non-urgent appointment 2 days in advance. Not useful as they are always full leading to a cycle of calling every day at 8am to try and get an appointment.

My DD woke up with bruised swollen eyes looking like she'd been punched or stung. I called our village surgery who slotted her in at the end of the morning session & GP diagnosed eye infection. But he was at his most awesome when he said I could prescribe antibiotic drops which I would have done before I had kids and realised what a pain in the arse they are to get in their eyes! Wipe her eyes with cotton wool, boiled water and salt and if she's not looking better in 3 days come back. It started looking better the next day and cleared up by 3 days. No antibiotics needed, no worried mother over the weekend thinking her DD is going to go blind. But if she'd woken up like that on a Saturday or Sunday I'd have called OOHs on 111. But if 111 didn't exist I'd have gone to A&E because her eyes were oozing green pus by the time we got to the doctors! I'm lucky to have such an easy to access surgery but it sounds as though many others struggle to get same week appointments never mind same day To me it looks like better education of people about what services exist (DMIL had never heard of 111 when DFIL's gout flared up & she said she'd drive him to A&E) and also better access to services because even if you know to call your GP, see the pharmacist etc if they aren't open or can't see you in the time you need to be reassured then it's no wonder people escalate to A&E. I'm not saying it's right but it is understandable in many cases.fIf you ask yourself 'Is this an accident or an emergency?' and the answer is no call 111. Yes they often overreact and send ambulances willy nilly but at least you'll be able to blame the operator for why you got one! I appreciate not everywhere has 111 so it's not the only answer just another way to get access to the right service.

It made my teeth itch watching 24hrs in a&e op total waste of resources.
I think there is a mix of lack of health knowledge and lack of will to do the right thing.
111 isn't perfect but does on the whole give an indication at that point in time about a persons needs - this can and does change over time and if you think things have changed, become worse then you will need reassessing.
As it says on the pack if you have had to rely on calpol for more than three days to control pain or fever there may well be a serious underlying medical condition that needs to be assessed by a gp or np.
On a daily basis I have people filling my clinics with d & v - for less than 6hrs, back, knee, shoulder pain that they have taken no pain relief for, viral symptoms (going on hols tomorrow can I have some abx please) etc
It does get depressing...

Oh I see BarbarianMum. I was basing on my own experience but I have quite a lot of allergies and I'm not always sure what the trigger is for me so it all blends into one! I know I get hayfever most of the year round.

Serious flare up of eczema in dd, bleeding, raw skin. Called drs, no appts for a week. Ok, I'll go to pharmacist. Pharmacist takes a look, says he knows exactly what is needed but can't give it to us as dd is under one. I explain drs won't see us, pharmacist says we'll have to go to A&E. I call drs back and explain what pharmacist said, still no appts. Say I'm off to A&E then and I'll be making it extremely clear to them I am only there because xyz drs refused to see me. Appt magically found (I would have gone to A&E, and it would have been ridiculous).

(And saga continued over the next week as various treatments were tried until we were told there was an eczema specialist nurse who could prescribe that we could see who always has appointments. Why oh why didn't we get booked in with her first of all).

Idefix - I mentioned Calpol before. She takes her DC if they have had Calpol on three consecutive days, eg for teething

Petalunicorn we have the same with dd's eczema here! Bloody annoying when they say 'why didn't you book in'
I find I have more luck if I got to see hv about it at weighins or call them. They have got me gp appts the same day so I always go to them first now.

I was told off by the doctor (and quite rightly) for driving myself to a&e in the middle of a bad gallstone attack, I just remember screaming to myself all the way there.
Have taken dd2 to a&e twice, once when 111 told me I had to even though I didn't think it necessary, they sent us over to OOH who diagnosed viral tonsilitus. And once when she swallowed the serrated edge of a brunch bar wrapper and was gagging and choking - by the time we got there she was ok again and the doctor used a metal detector and found the wrapper in her tummy!
Other than that only other a&e visit was when pregnant with dd1 and had racing pulse and breathlessness. Both my visits resulted in admissions.

Agree MrsHathaway that for teething I would be resisting eye rolling in front of said parents but in generally it is not normal for children to need round the clock calpol for three days without a check up. My personal pet hate is when after seeing me or one of my colleagues dc is taken to a&e for "proper" diagnosis to be be told again it is viral argghhh! :)

3800 calls in 24hrs. That's just to one ambulance service. That's why there are delays and people waiting
I could list 100 inappropriate calls and 100 that should have called sooner but I CBA to NC!
I've had to call for other people and myself but quite frankly it's pretty embarrassing to ring your colleagues!
I drove myself to hospital with pneumonia, and a broken ankle and foot (thought chest infection, and sprain...)

Here's some 999 audio

I trust the a&e doctors more to be honest but then we had military in our hospital.

Lower back pain... Went to the walk in "it's fine nothing to worry about" early am the next morning in agony, crying etc ended up at a&e and had surgery

WEnt to the walk in with bad foot pain after impaling my foot on a sharp knife (idiot dh put the dirty washing up on the floor) minor cut but couldn't bare weight... Sent to a&e x-Ray.. Just an infection

So i don't trust the walk in but even though, I still go there first if the gp is closed

I've been to AandE with a bruised foot. To be fair I thought it was broken (dropped something heavy on it) and I think the triage nurse must have agreed because I had it x rayed.

I almost called 999 for my friend when she had her first ever asthma attack and had left her inhaler at work. She collapsed completely and it scared me half to death. Thankfully we did manage to get into work as my other friend had a set of keys and we found her inhaler. I still wanted her to go to hospital afterwards because it had really scared me but she decided not to. She was probably right but after she said she knew she had asthma but had never had an attack before I thought AandE might have been worth a visit.

I've been sent to A&E with my DS once when I didn't really need to go for lack of other appropriate resources.

I rang the non emergency help line but it was as though they washed their hands of us as soon as they heard a child was involved and sent us to A&E instead. I really think he could have been seen by a GP but it was out of hours.

I had a similar experience when I hurt my shoulder. It's a recurring problem which is very very painful when it happens, think an 8.5 on the pain scale if childbirth is 10. Typically it happened outside GPs hours. I rang the non emergency line again to find out where I could go and they panicked because the pain was in my left arm so they feared I was having a heart attack. The call took so long I'd have been dead if it was a heart attack in my opinion but hay ho.

They told me to go straight to A&E which I thought was ridiculous so I ended up crossing the entire city to go to the walk in centre, thinking this was more appropriate. I won't bother with that again, they only agreed to help me because I burst into tears and sent me to see the GP.

If there is a next time I will go straight to A&E and not mess about because at least then I will get to see a doctor even if I have to wait 6 hours.

Round my way, the system only works if you get ill before 8am on a Monday - Friday, otherwise you have no hope of a GPs appointment and A&E is your only other choice. Plus the only walk in centre is genuinely in the middle of fucking no where, Gods help you if you don't have car.

And several people stepped over or round her in the street because they thought she was pissed .

I was too busy trying to listen for her breathing to tell them different. We had been to the pub but it was still an asthma attack. I really really thought I would have to resuscitate her but she came too and I literally dragged her across the street to the office for the inhaler. Don't know how I managed it looking back as I'm absolutely tiny.

I was horrified to see a sign up in my local doctor's surgery about no shows at GP appointments in November. It is a big practice with three separate surgeries. The largest had 1018 no shows, the second largest had 410 and even the smallest (in a village) had 25.

I wonder how many of these appointments could have been used by people who turned up at A and E in despair because they couldn't get GP appointments within a week or more?

It makes me really angry that so many people made these appointments and can't be arsed to turn up or even have the common courtesy to call in and cancel if they no longer needed it. I cannot believe that all 1,453 no shows had perfect reasons for not turning up or not cancelling.

Free at the point of use is a fine ideal but perhaps some people take this right so much for granted they are monumentally selfish about how they use the service.

I would love to see swinging fines for patients like this, except of course it might cost more to collect the money than the GP practice gains. But it may make more slots available for people who have the need (and the manners) to turn up and thereby easing some of the burden on A and E departments.

I recently had cause to attend A&E with a legitimate complaint, and whilst there the (very arrogant) doctor refused to actually examine me and sent me home insisting that I had a very minor, very trivial ailment. The nurse who I had seen disagreed and told him so, but he overruled her.

I didn't. What I had wasn't life threatening, but left untreated it could have become a life changing illness (think lifelong disability).

No doubt somewhere I am down on the hospital records as being a timewaster who came in with something that wasn't worthy of A&E. But I'm not, the Dr was wrong, not me.

I have to say, it has changed a view a bit. Occasionally you see reports on the news saying that X % of people come to A&E with things that could have been dealt with by otc medicines and I think 'that's shocking' but now I know that I might be included in those statistics due to a misdiagnosis and it makes me wonder...

Idefix I agree. I tried to get an appt for then-6mo DS after three days of high (39-41) temperature and precisely no effect from OTC medicines. You'd have thought I was asking for the head of the receptionist's first born, because it was Christmas Eve and because of weekends and Bank Holidays they had "no" emergency appointments until the 29th or something.

So I asked if he could maybe be added to the home visit list - no. I asked who would see him, should I try A&E? - suddenly an appointment was made available, at which I was bollocked by the doctor for being abusive to his staff. I asked him if they recorded calls, as it might be constructive to listen to said call before labelling it abusive (and it genuinely, genuinely wasn't). He agreed to remove the note from the file, and the manner in which he did so told me he was used to that receptionist..

tl;dr - sometimes you can't get an appointment for "persistent high temperature not controlled by paracetamol" anyway.