To be really annoyed at the NHS today?

[BlueNeighbourhood]

As a first point, I want to say how awesome the police are...which I'm sure will become apparent in this thread.

My brother was out last night at a local pub with his friends, he wasn't too drunk, just merry and decided to leave around 9pm to get a taxi home. Somehow from leaving the pub he's tripped and fell into the road, smashing his face up and some damage to his foot. Fortunately a police riot van was passing and found him in the street, picked him up and took him straight to the local walk in centre. They stayed with him right until me and my parents got there last night (my parents had both had a glass of wine with dinner so didn't want to drive).

So at the walk in, we were told they wouldn't even clean up the wound on his face or X-Ray his foot, he should go to hospital. They told us we should take him as an ambulance would be a 90 minute wait. At this point he's quite concussed and struggling to stay awake. So I drove straight to hospital.

In A&E it's two flights of stairs and along a corridor in a temporary box room while waiting for a new one to be constructed. Poky, too hot and very much squished in. It then took two hours to be seen by a triage nurse followed by another two hours to see a nurse who said she couldn't do anything and needed to wait for a doctor who wasn't available.

All the while the room is getting more and more full, he's complaining of headaches and pain in his foot and wants to sleep. In the end at 3.30am we took him home and my Mum watched over him all night while he slept to make sure he was okay.

It just seems so fundamentally wrong in there, it was an accident and he's been in hospitals for more than four hours without someone as much as taking some cotton wool to his face. No help whatsoever! But I have to say the police in all of this were so kind and great. It's just the NHS was a complete let down.

And breathe...rant over!!

[expatinscotland]

YABU

[TinselTwins]

You're annoyed because nobody came to dab his face with cotton wool? WTF?

[Fuxfurforall]

How do you know what was going on in A an E behind the scenes? For all you know the staff were dealing with a massive emergency. Whilst I can appreciate we all think we deserve to be seen quickly - I think you can safely assume the NHS staff do not sit around with their fingers up their backsides at any time during a shift. We do not pay a small fortune to be treated and do not get turned away when in need. Try to put it in some perspective, maybe.

[harderandharder2breathe]

Yabu

From the fact that it would be 90 minutes for an ambulance you should realise how busy A&E must have been. The number of people in the waiting room is irrelevant as you wouldn't have seen the urgent ambulance admissions, which rightly so get to jump the queue.

Complain to successive governments who have cut NHS funding. Complain to your brother who got drunk and fell over. Complain to your parents who had been drinking too so you had to go along.

[PacificDogwod]

The NHS is inadequate. It wasn't any better under Labour.

It was less worse 20 years ago, or even 10

The NHS was never conceived to cope with what is now expected.

Bevan was under the impression that once all the unmet health needs were caught up on the work load would go down. He had not counted on increasing wealth and advances in medicine leading to preventative medicine, people seeking medical advice for one spot (I kid you not - worried it would still be there by the time her wedding in July came round, you know) and a culture of suspicious and blame meaning that everything needs to be recorded in triplicate in order to be audible.

I'm glad your DB is ok, OP.
I think you were a bit lucky, taking a concussed sleepy person home, and that if you were that worried you should have waited. Or decided you were not worried, so go home without going via Minor Injuries and A+E. Yes, his 'DNW' (did not wait) will generate a paper trail and a letter to his GP. Who will have to read and file that letter after it has been processed by their admin staff.

[Libitina]

Also for anyone saying, he wasn't drunk.

He was perfectly sober at this point and fine to return home.

[Geekmama]

Gosh......your being very unreasonable! It's not the NHS is fault. If you're going to blame anyone, blame the government and the idiots that voted them in. If you had to wait four hours there were probably people that needed help more then your brother did.

[alsmutko]

Many years ago, I worked in A&E (medical records, not clinical staff). It was a particularly busy evening and after the third time one particular man asked 'how much longer' and finally 'bet they're all in there drinking cups of tea', I came out into the waiting room, grabbed his arm and took him on a guided tour of the treatment areas, with all the chaos, rushing around, all cubicles with curtains round them thus occupied, etc. The only medical staff sitting down was a doctor phoning round wards to find an empty bed. (Don't worry, we didn't get in anyone's way, nor violate anyone's privacy).

He looked a bit ashamed and I didn't hear anything more from him. He followed up his teatment with profuse thanks all round. And quite right too.

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

Well I think he should have been triaged immediately: surely that is what triage is all about. And someone should have said "Look, if he's had a bang on the head, you need to watch out for him getting sleepy." Things could have gone badly wrong here.

[TheSmurfsAreHere]

Sober young men do not trip and smash their face in so badly it needs stitches whilst also breaking toes. That's an alcohol related injury.

If that is the case, you will have to explain to me how I managed to fall over as I was entering a pub , so I could NOT have had a drink at all, and ended I up in A&E with a foot that was looking so bad that everyone thought it was broken in several places.
If it has been outside in the street, I probably would have ended up with my face scratched all over from being in tact with the pavement instead of carpet.

I have no doubt at all that the OP's brother wasn't drunk.
I do think that people at A&E had the same reactions that people on this thread, the ones on the pub that didn't lift a finger to come and help me, and thought I was drunk and didn't deserve any help at all. WHich I was NOT. I can't drink due a health condition.

Having said that, yes sdirect your anger at the governmeemnnt and remember that things will get worse as they are reducing funding again.....
And by experience, it's better to have an ambulance called, which the walk in center was ready to do for you anyway as they thought he needed immediate care. Yes yu will wait 90mons for the ambulance but you won't be waiting 4hours in the corridor to be seen.

[NarkyMcDinkyChops]

Well I think he should have been triaged immediately: surely that is what triage is all about

He got triaged and was placed in the queue accordingly. What more do you want?

[JustAnotherPoster00]

[TheSmurfsAreHere]

And the fact you have to wait 90mins for an ambulance has nothing to do with the fact they are busy. It's the fact that there isn't enough ambulances...


Remember that the situation with the NHS is so dire NOW, that it's considered a humanitarian crisis by the Red Cross. You know the ones that normally talk about humanitarian crisis in Africa and the likes. This is how bad it is.
So please don't put the responsibility on people daring to go to hospital or because it's a Saturday and they are always busier.
The issue is so so much more deep and serious than that.

[Bunnyfuller]

Drunken injury, no need for doc AND you took up police time because 'your parents had had wine'

Ff scare there no taxis where he was? YABVVVU to nhs and the police. What a pisstake

[Sirzy]

I am glad the majority have agreed you are being unreasonable.

You were either worried enough to think he needed a and e treatment or not worried enough to just take him home?

You have no idea what was going on "behind the scenes" to result in you having to wait.

[Topseyt]

I don't read it as OP saying she wanted to call an ambulance, more that it was just a comment made by the walk-in centre staff.

You will get a (probably unfairly) hard time here, OP. The usual attitude is how dare you have A & E unless you are 90% dead or with your limbs hanging off. As for calling an ambulance, same thing applies.

I don't think that, and hope your brother improves soon.

Don't be too angry with the NHS though. Be angry with the politicians who have ensured for years that it is chronically under-funded and under-resourced. This, I am afraid, is the end result.

I was recently told by the GP to take my DD2 to A & E because she had slipped on black ice and had a very painful wrist, so they wanted it x-rayed same day. All told, we were there for about 4 hours I would guess. It isn't unusual. The x-ray found no problem thankfully, but apparently not all fractures are visible immediately so she had to wear a splint for a couple of weeks as a precaution. She was fine, but nobody knew that at first because of the amount of pain she was originally in.

[VforVienetta]

I feel for the staff on the other side of the doors - I've had to take my DC into our local A&E for various reasons/injuries and waited 2-4 hours for most visits (obvs much quicker with DC2s breathing problems).

After one v long wait the doc apologised in a very resigned fashion and seemed really surprised and grateful when I said "Oh really don't worry! I could hear the screaming, poor child, they obviously needed you a lot more than we do!".

[TheSmurfsAreHere]

Drunken injury - no need for a doc

Did I read that right that drunken people don't deserve a doc??

The person in question was sent by a doctor to A&E because they thought they could NOT treat him (as too serious for a walk in center)
The same person was seen the day after and had stitches, X-rays and was told they have some broken toes.
They were also diagnosed with concussion by a doctor which can be VERY serious.

But because the story starts with him coming out of a pub, then he HaS to be one of those undeserving drunks...
Okayy.....

And they misused the Police time when they never rang the Police, they just happened to be there. Were they supposed to tell them to fuck off instead?? Or to appreciate their help and let them do their job?

[ZebraOwl]

And by experience, it's better to have an ambulance called, which the walk in center was ready to do for you anyway as they thought he needed immediate care. Yes yu will wait 90mons for the ambulance but you won't be waiting 4hours in the corridor to be seen.

Shipping up at A&E in an ambulance only gets you seen faster if that is clinically necessary. Which is why you see the idiots who mistake them for big white taxis being wheeled or walked into the A&E waiting room by paramedics. (Unfortunately, if the paramedics massively MASSIVELY stuff up, you may then get to see someone go from balling&crying from the pain of appendicitis PLUS burst-ovarian-cyst into having an epileptic seizure & swiftly being yanked off to recus... but that, mercifully, is rare...)

[Verbena37]

When you book In A % E reception, they almost do a mini triage there and then.
They knew I assume he had hurt his foot, fallen on his face and had concussion....in which case, being in hospital, if the concussion got worse, he would be in the right place.

As it was, you deemed him well enough to go home, he hadn't passed out etc. and your mum was able to watch over him at home until the next day, when he had stitches and got crutches for a broken toe (which wouldn't normally have any other treatment).

Yes, four hours is annoying but on a Saturday that's pretty nippy I'd say.

Before christmas, my joints stopped working and I was in accute pain down one side of my body and a mouthful of open blisters. Because I lost the ability to walk and was in so much pain, DH rushed me to A & E.
I spent 9 hours there in a wheelchair, almost passed out twice and was crying in pain yet was put in a room (empty bay lined with chairs either side) to sit and wait.

Throughout the day, I was assessed, given a lot of meds, given a chest X-ray, given a cannula in case I needed a drip and kept being checked now on. They said they had wanted to keep me in but because there were more dodgy illnesses than the bacterial infection I had, they didn't want to put me more at risk so let me leave about 19:30.

Yes, it was a shattering day and I was in a lot of pain and a wheelchair but they were so lovely whenever they spoke to me and were very apologetic. They were run off their feet and some people in cubicles were very very poorly.
However, I knew that if I needed urgent care, they'd have given me it.

They assess and make choices. Not easy choices but in general, NHS hospitals do a really impressive job.

[Celaena]

I've requested for the thread to be deleted.

Why?

[Topseyt]

Oh, and to the poster who said that people who are not drunk do not fall and injure themselves this severely, sorry but that is just total bollocks.

I was stone cold sober when I tripped and broke my arm so badly that the bone was through the skin and the arm really was actually hanging off. So you would have suspected me of being drunk and said I shouldn't have been taken by ambulance to A & E and didn't need to take up a doctor's time, much less I suppose the operating theatre time I also needed to salvage my arm!!!

There are some really ridiculous comments here.

[londonrach]

Yabu. Drunks like your brother are not accidents. Its self inflicted. If i had my way id charge drunks for wasting nhs time. If he is falling whilst 'merry' sounds like he alcohol problem.

[NarkyMcDinkyChops]

Did I read that right that drunken people don't deserve a doc??

No, you didn't read it right, you missed the comma which entirely changes the point..."drunk injury, no need for a dr, and......."

[TheSullenPenguin]

The NHS is not finite. How on earth can people not understand this. We pay less and less in tax but expect the same service