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!!

[londonrach]

Zebras right an ambulance only gets you to hospital quicker not seen quicker. Everyone is clinically assisted and those at greatest need are seen first.

[Toffeelatteplease]

Yes you will wait 90mons for the ambulance but you won't be waiting 4hours in the corridor to be seen.

Absolute bollocks and a really ignorant shitty attitude.

We have twice been in the position of absolutely genuinely needing an ambulance but then waiting 6 hours at A&E (also quite fairly as paramedics had stablised the condition).

The paramedic and ambulance cannot leave you until you are handed over to A&E. If A&E are backlogged you are risking taking up an ambulance time whilst someone is dying. All because you thought it would save you the hassle of waiting.

And trust me if you have been in the position of waiting 15-20mins for an ambulance without a clue whether the person is going to live if die the idea of someone taking up ambulance time to save them waiting really is appalling shitty behaviour.

[NarkyMcDinkyChops]

There are some really ridiculous comments here

Like yours? OP said her brother had been drinking, was merry, and was sober by after 3am. So comments about your sober injury are pointless.

[Hairyfairy01]

Your right OP, it's not good enough but it's the fault of the government not the NHS. As someone else pointed out these doctors are on call for the whole hospitial. I've also been in a&e when they simply couldn't admit anymore patients to be seen in the department as every single patient in a&e needed a bed on a ward yet not one bed was available in the whole hospital. Instead the ward beds had a lot of elderly people in them who were medically fit for discharge yet couldn't leave as there are no spaces in residential or nursing homes, or no home carers available to do the 4 x daily visits they need for a safe discharge. Some of these elderly people have been in hospitial for months. The knock on effect for the rest of the hospitial is huge. Our country urgently needs better social care provision e.g. - more nursing and residential homes and to pay / treat carers better so they actually stay in the job longer than 2 months. This situation will only get worse as our elderly population rises and the governments makes even more cuts.

[Bodicea]

I would be concerned about not being seen regards the concussion - unless the triage nurse assessed that and was happy for you to wait
. To be honest as a radiographer, who used to work on call for a&e, I would not have been impressed to be asked to x-ray a foot for a ? Broken toe any time past midnight. It isn't really an emergency.
It's not ideal but unless we start paying for more a&e drs then it there will always be a long wait at the weekend.

[GizmoFrisby]

It's not the NHS fault. My dad had a stroke and they left him for 2 and 1/2 hours before assessing him
and me losing the plot at them.
It's injurys like your brothers that are filling up the NHS. People pissed up and overdosing etc.

[GizmoFrisby]

Oh and forgot YABVVVU

[Sirzy]

I remember walking in carrying ds who was quickly triaged and taken through to majors and a mother complaining that her son had come in via ambulance so why was he still waiting?

Ds was a known severe asthmatic with low Sats and it turned out a chest infection. From what my mum overheard of her complaining about the wait on the phone to someone her son had fallen off a step and twisted his ankle!

Method of arrival isn't an indicator of need of treatment.

[Bodicea]

I have to say my experience recently has been great. My son often gets into breathing difficulties/ low sats and we are always seen wishing half an hour. If it is a real emergency then you do get seen and treated pretty fast.

[PlumsGalore]

So you knew what was going on in the background did you? That potentially there were major traffic accidents or heart attacks and your DB who got pissed should take priority and not wait two hours? He wasn't going to die, some of the people in the background may have done.

DD works in an NHS hospital as a radiographer, some of the time in A and E, seriously you have no idea, you should spend a day behind the scenes.

[Bunnyfuller]

Police job is not to babysit people in A and E! It's to catch criminals!! 'Do their job' omfg

[jamdonut]

What I don't get is why you took him home if he was falling to sleep! All the more reason to stay at the hospital, as clearly he was concussed! At least he was in the right place!
I think you were lucky he got up ok the next day, to be honest.

[Mindtrope]

NHS is brilliant-

Called an ambulance for my dying father- he was rushed through A&E within seconds and seen by a doctor within a minute. Waiting room was packed.
OP - your drunken brother was not a priority.
And so badly injured you went home?

[VioletRoar]

[TheFairyCaravan]

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.

It's attitudes like this that stopped DS2 going to A&E at Christmas. He was out with DS1, having a few drinks (wasn't drunk) for his birthday when a stranger punched him to the floor. He was left with a nasty cut above his eye, his eye was so swollen he couldn't open it for 2 days and it was black and bruised. He got me to steri-strip the cut, which should really have been stitched, and we iced the eye for days. He's been left with a scar and numbness because he didn't want to be lumped in with "drunks fighting wasting resources".

YABU to moan about waiting 4 hours on a Saturday night in A&E. That's nothing. DS2 is a student nurse, he regularly tells me about the ambulances queuing up outside because there's nowhere to put patients in A&E. On Friday he said A&E was horrendous, if there was corridor space there was a trolley with a patient on it, in it.

The people you need to be angry with are your MPs.

[rosy71]

I am more shocked by the fact that you took home someone who had a head injury and was falling asleep than the fact that you had to wait 4 hours.

I would also imagine that, sitting in the corridor, you didn't see all the patients going in and out. Even if there were only 10 people in the waiting room, there could've been full cubicles in the A&E.

[lougle]

I'm all for drunk people who need A&E using A&E. I'm all for drunk people who need intensive care getting intensive care. To me, it doesn't matter why they need the services of the NHS, it is our role to provide the services needed.

However, if you are well enough that you are frustrated to have to wait 4 hours to see a doctor, then I don't think A&E is the right place to present. I think that if you are ill enough to need A&E, you'll either be seen before 4 hours is up, or you'll be grateful to be seen no matter how long it takes.

[londonrach]

Fairy. You taking my words out if context. Your db was attacked and needed hospital treatment!

[Hugepeppapigfan]

This thread has actually brought a lump to my throat. OP - YABU. If he was okay to take home then he was okay to wait. The NHS is so precious and everyone really needs to make fewer demands on it. The alternative is far worse. And you can't always tell what is a huge emergency just by looking at people. My DH walked into an urgent care centre on Boxing Day and into the ambulance they called (they refused to let me drive him). He looked perfectly fine but was at huge and immediate risk of heart failure. When he was wheeled into A&E people with cut faces and broken toes were probably pissed off that this fit looking young male was whisked through. FWIW he had an 8 minute ambulance response and no wait in A&E - because he required immediate treatment to prevent something catastrophic. The system works when it really has to. Please take more care of our precious NHS, everyone. Cuts and broken bones aren't nice of course.

[Chinnygirl]

I'm not in the UK but here they also complain about the waiting times at A&E. I once went in with chestpain, the feeling an elephant was sitting on my chest and trouble breathing. These are all heart attack signs. I didn't even get to sit on a chair in the waiting room because I was taken by the first available docter who checked me out immediately ahead of the queue.

You know what, they help those who are dying first. If you will stay alive for a couple of hours without intervention then you can wait your turn. And rightly so.

[EmeraldIsland]

Pissed up bloke falls over and bangs his head. He's not bleeding profusely (not dangerously so, obviously) and is still conscious.

Did you expect to get him in first, past the elderly who've fallen and the toddlers with massive fevers.

YABU op. If he was fine enough for you to take home after 4 hours, he was fine enough for you to have taken him home and cleaned him up yourself in the first place.

[Toffeelatteplease]

The system works when it really has to. Please take more care of our precious NHS, everyone

This absolutely

I think that if you are ill enough to need A&E, you'll either be seen before 4 hours is up, or you'll be grateful to be seen no matter how long it takes.

And this

[nurseinwonderland]

And finally can please everyone understand, we were TOLD by the walk in that we MUST take him to hospital as soon as possible.

I didn't want to go at 10pm on a Saturday night, I had every vision possible of it being full of drunks fighting. I would much rather have taken him home and be seen the next day. However we were basically ordered to drive him there.

But then you decided to go against those Dr's advice? And go home.

[SeaWitchly]

I agree with PP who say choose wisely who you vote for at the next election.
Vote for this same shitstorm of a political party and get more of the same regards the NHS and other associated cock ups.

[BBCNewsRave]

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

That's what I thought! My A&E record is 11 hours to be assessed by mental health team (and sent home with no follow up, depite being held there by police for fears of my safety). Experiencing the mental health side of the NHS is like looking into the future of the physical health side, and it's terrifying.