to think that no wonder the NHS A&E depts waiting time is bad, there are so many timewasters.

[CalicoBlue]

I just spent the afternoon (3 hours) in Urgent Care/A&E with DS. I have not been to A&E in over 12 years and was really surprised at all the reasons people were there for. Granted if it had not been the weekend I would have gone to my GP, but my son's condition meant he needed to be seen today.

We were sat very close to the welcome window, so I heard every new person come in. There were so many people there who should not have been. The nurse kept asking people if they had seen their GP, so many said no.

One girl said that she had been there last week had been given antibiotics for a water infection and it had not gone so she wanted to see the doctor again, the nurse said that she should have made an appointment for her doctor and that urgent care was not to come to instead of the GP. There were at least two that had lost prescriptions given by their GP so wanted UC to replace them and would not take no for an answer. It went on an on, another person came in with his father who had an ongoing leg problem, the nurse tried to explain that he needed to see his GP, but he did not have one as he was on holiday and wanted to get his leg sorted before he went home again, they did tell him that they would not see him and he would not get the operation he said he wanted on the NHS.

I estimated that at least one third of the people coming there could have been seen by their GP. There were lots who did need to be seen, and lots of sick kids, but they had to wait so long. I felt quite guilty for being and taking up the doctors time.

We get people making same day urgent appointments, which they then fail to turn up to!

It's staggering really. And no they didn't deteriorate and get taken in to A&E, and they didn't make a miraculous recovery. Often they just can't be arsed to get there. Or they make an appointment to get checked over then something more exciting comes up instead so they just don't turn up.

There's no penalty for them, so missing an appointment is no big deal.

One hopsital DS attends has automated phone calls to confirm appointments and texts reminders. I had to cancel on the day once and was was to do it online with a new appointment sent out in days.

I like the reminders. I need them. I went to the dentists in the wrong day. Right time but day before the actual apt. Ah well at least I didn't miss it I guess. Had to go back the next day.

One clinic I go to sends a letter, then an automated phone call then an sms message. I bet people still forget!

I do however resent the attitude medics have that their time is more important than mine and that they feel it's ok to make me wait for hours past my appointment time. I have family and work commitments that are important to me and running hours behind is t acceptable

One clinic I go to i book the first appt of the day at 8am so I can go to work, and I'm ALWAYS late in, usually not seen til 9 or even 930 it's ridiculous and unacceptable!

"I do however resent the attitude medics have that their time is more important than mine and that they feel it's ok to make me wait for hours past my appointment time. I have family and work commitments that are important to me and running hours behind is t acceptable"

Many hospital consultants earn more in one hour than their patients do in a day. Financially their time is more precious than most of their patients. Isn't wonderful that a cleaner being paid the minimum wage had access to the best hospital consultants in the world. The fact that the nhs is free at point of use means we take hospital consultant time for granted. Sick people do not have to worry about huge hospital bills in the UK.

shouldiworry if not missing work is so important to you or your employer then you should consider private health care. The cost of seeing your consultant privately would be eye watering. Missing a morning off work is a small price to pay for free healthcare.

Why it's so difficult to get an appointment with your GP: www.resilientgp.org/inappropriate-demands/

The people in this link are taking all the appointments!

That's not really fair, ReallyTired. Of course people are grateful to have access to consultants, but when you're chronically ill you can spend a lot of time at the hospital. It makes it extremely difficult to juggle working and ill health if you have to take a day or a half day off from work every week or so, rather than an hour. And many chronically ill people are already struggling on low or part-time wages and can't pay privately.

I now can't work at all, but still struggle to fit in all my medical appointments in each week (usually 4/5 on average) as I can never guess at how long they'll take. I had to wait an hour and a half over my appointment time to see my GP this week, and was late for a hospital appointment because of it. I knew if I just walked out, I wouldn't get in again for weeks and it was urgent.

You might see me in A&E with a UTI at a weekend it bank holiday. I'm chronically ill and have renal damage so time can matter and I'd rather not wait more than 24 hours for treatment. I have antibiotics at home to take in the event of a delay seeing a doctor, but occasionally the infection will get out of hand really suddenly or I'll end up with renal colic and be in the sort of pain I can't cope with.

Often I'll arrange things over the phone with a doctor I know to avoid that hassle though. When you hurt and want to puke, sitting surrounded by other people sucks. If I sort out an action plan beforehand, I can avoid a wait and go straight onto an assessment Ward.

ReallyTired that is rather patronizing to be honest. Not all NHS patients are cleaners. Some have equally important responsibilities as consultants, and it isn't all about financial rewards anyway. (I earn about 30% more than my consultant husband, but I still have to wait bloody hours beyond my appointment time! And I don't finish by 6pm every day like him - excluding PP clinics!) What about mothers with kids to collect? Is it really so difficult to run clinics more efficiently?
If we want everyone to continue to buy in to the idea of a free NHS paid for by everyone, then I think it needs to serve the needs of working people (who are currently paying for it) better than happens at the moment.

Re the having to wait for appointments, doctors don't only do their clinics. Sometimes small things like emergencies get in the way (either in the clinic or on the ward)

When DS was 8 weeks old he was critically ill, the respiritory consultant and two other doctors were needed to stabilise him. It just so happened it was the consultants clinic day so he has to be called from clinic. I have no doubt it caused chaos for the clinic but it kept DS alive. We have also has appointments which have taken well over their allowed time because it was needed to get him sorted. (He is now given double appointments)

It's not nice to wait but often there is good reason it happens.

Financially their time is more precious than most of their patients.

God, is that really what it boils down to? The time of the rich is more important than that of the poor because whatever commitments the poor may have are meaningless. Never mind the fact that those "cleaners" missing out on a few more hours of work will mean less pay and possibly less chance of giving their family a week of decent meals. Never mind the fact that some sick people are carers themselves with many other responsibilities. "If you're poor, we can waste your time." It's attitudes like that that make me sick.

But Sirzy it's often the registrars who are present at clinics and presumably they can continue seeing at least some routine patients in the circumstances you describe? I am sure no right minded person would object to waiting in an emergency, but it's the principle of everyone showing up at the same time that I object to. That means that all but one person (the first appointment) are delayed irrespective of whether there is an emergency.

A business run like that would very quickly have no customers! But it's the NHS, so we have to suck it up and be grateful....

Incidentally, the ONLY time my DH is on the ward at the weekend or in the evening is when one of his PP's is admitted as an emergency. NHS patients have to wait for the next ward round (which may be several days away, because he covers several hospitals). We have our own form of two-tier system, and it's lazy and foolish to pretend otherwise.

Our clinic if is the consultant and a registrar so if you take the consultant out then of course it will make a wait as the registrar needs to see twice as many people.

Everyone turning up at the same time is a daft system though and I struggle to see how it benefits anyone.

I cut my finger last year when a glass broke in my hand. After 4 hours it still hadn't stopped bleeding so dh drove me to the GP's surgery to see if the practice nurse could help. The receptionist said I had to go to A and E because there might be glass in it and I would need an X-ray. I felt really daft walking in with a cut finger but she left me with no option. The next day I found out a new minor injuries unit had opened about 15 minutes away. You'd think the stupid receptionist would have directed me there. With staff like that no wonder the NHS is struggling. And of course I didn't need an x-ray.

Every A&E unit should have an out of hour 24/7/365 GP minor injury surgery next to it. Then minor injuries and illnesses can triage straight to it or straight to majors.

Sorry but I am sick of hearing arrogant NHS managers and staff blaming patients for a mess they created.

If GP surgeries shut for 7 days over Xmas and not available in the evening what else can NHS expect. They shut the out of hours unit 5 minutes walk from my house and it has taken me 3 days to get a GP appointment.

I eventually got a GP appointment only to be told the GP is leaving the practice 17 April so I will have to start again explaining my problem to a new GP once my tests come back.

I've been in a n e four times in last few years , no complaints with my head injury I was in and out within an hour.

I've been there for a uti as well I was a nurse on two long days a study day and then two more long days so it was my only option.

But I've also seen it from other side , a drunk teenager, some one who came I. With a cat scratch, plus a mum who wanted free calpol

.... and anther thing I am sick of is the snotty notices on walls in hospital and GP surgery about no show appointments. Since when did that have any impact? There has never been a single appointment in my whole life a Dr has seen me on time. Surely a no show just makes room for other people to be seen on time.

I am going to hospital today for a complex series of tests. It will take 1.5 hours to get there as they shut the unit in my local hospital - they better not keep me waiting.

At my dentists, if you fail to show twice in a row they deregister you. They also have an excellent system of sending you text reminders of appointments, and you can always get through on the phone.

Reallytired how much a consultant gets paid is irrelevant to the importance of punctuality appointments and in clinics. However that is probably at the back of their minds when they are keeping people waiting. Some doctors in the NHS definitely act like they are doing you a favour by seeing you and that needs to get knocked on the head.

I had a Dr appointment last year ,he was running about half hour behind but when I saw I understand why he was so good , I was with him forty minutes.
He got me a second opinion on my condition explain what it was ,arranged for my ad.mission to hospital, explained the procedure.
I could have died if I'd not seen him .

lem73 I agree. Some doctors behave as though they are graciously bestowing charity (despite being the best paid in Europe).

How long do you think its acceptable to wait? When I had to see the hospital consultant about a broken thumb not healing I had to wait 40 minutes for a 5 minute appointment. It was boring waiting, but I wasn't in any danger or pain. I imagine an orthopedic consultant might have to see someone with a really nasty and dangerous break as an emergency.

The nhs is a very cost efficent way of providing healthcare to the entire nation. As a country we spend less of our gross national product on health care than the US, but we enjoy higher standards of public health than the americans. European countries who enjoy a higher standard of public health spend more per head on the nhs than we do. There are not many countries where access to the best consultants is possible regardless of financial means.

At the moment neither the tories or labour have an appertite for increasing spending. If patients were seen on time then it would increase the waiting list for the appointment. I think that posters on this thread often forget that people used to have to have wait for several months if not years to get an appointment date for the consultant. I do not want the number of available appointments reduced to improve punctuality.

Why do we always have to compare ourselves to the U.S.? Why not France or Germany (which would be my personal preference, because it offers greater patient autonomy and choice IME).

And if the NHS is so great, why are we the only country (other than Cuba) which delivers healthcare this way?