AIBU to complain about the state of A and E last night?

[waterjungle]

I arrived at 9pm with my 1 year old. He had croup that started the previous night. We had two Drs appointments that day where they had said it was just a chest infection and not to be worried. Later in the evening he began to have problems breathing and we couldn’t get his temperature down so decided it was the sensible option.

A and E was heaving. Went to reception, they said wait to be triaged, 3 hours later my we were still waiting. There were so many people with what looked like minor ailments, cuts etc. One family with their 6/7 yr old had an additional 5 family members with them. They had set up a picnic and were feeding him trifle. There was nowhere to sit we got a space in the corner on the floor.

There was a paediatric Dr dealing with a mental health case in the children’s waiting room. That person had been turned away from the emergency psychiatric unit and the police.

The Dr came out and said there would be a 6/7 hour wait and they were overwhelmed. At this 50% of people got up and walked out including picnic family who left all their empty sandwich / crisp/ trifle detritus behind .

Dr caught sight of my son, noticed how unwell he was and rushed him through to resus. His oxygen levels were chronically low. He was in danger and at this point hadn’t even been triaged.

Various doctors came in and apologised saying we had been badly let down and hadn't got the care we should have. They are making a complaint, they told us it was only a matter of time before they missed something and somebody died. They said they were scared and wanted us to make a complaint too so it is officially flagged.

My heart goes out to them. They must be frightened to go into work, I have never seen an emergency room in such a state before. There is obviously chronic understaffing and underfunding but what were those people who walked out doing there? If they had a real emergency surely they would have stayed?

My son was admitted and is going to be fine but it could have been different. It may be different for someone else’s son or daughter. Please don’t go to A and E unless it is really nessacaery. AIBU to think I shouldn’t even have to say that?!

Also how do we go ahead making a complaint or who do we complain to without blaming the doctors or staff who are so obviously doing their best?

It's awful. I was waiting in A&E with a suspected ectopic for hours. A guy came in ages after me with a bee sting and got seen before me. Not anaphylaxis, just a bee sting. I think they struggle to prioritise when they're so busy.

However, I would never moan to the staff. I had a friend who was a nurse in A&E and one night she was fielding demands from impatient people with minor ailments when she had just admitted 2 dead children from a car crash. It must be really hard for them.

When I had my 4 wisdom teeth out on a Friday under GA and by Sunday I had an infection I didn’t bother going to A&E as I knew they wouldn’t help me. I called my dentist on the Monday who sent me to A&E, but they sent me straight down to the oral/maxillo dept as it was during the daytime. It’s completely different in the day time. I also had surgery about 2 years ago and had retention of urine and bypassed A&E to go straight to the gynae ward to be catheterised also middle of the daytime

It’s so different at night because the options become so narrow, if you haven’t acted during the day time, or it happens at night you aren’t left with many options

(And the GP admitted that was wholly bonkers, and that the only thing they could recommend me to do was take her to A&E. It was genuinely not possible to be referred via my GP)

Bloody hell, OP, your story sounds horrific.
I think the issue with the NHS and A&E is multifaceted, it’s definitely understaffed and overstretched but sometimes people have no other options. I took my daughter in once and we rightly had to wait, I was expecting it. She’d broken her arm and we just needed an X-ray and a cast but had no other way of getting this done, no
Minor injuries unit. I bet people thought she shouldn’t have been there as she was in quite good spirits.

I also had to take her in for an anaphylactic reaction and the staff were amazing and dealt with her straight away. I’d called 111 and they pre-warned A&E that we were coming in and they took her straight through, if they did triage her it wasn’t obvious.

I was taken in by ambulance once and again the staff were fantastic and saved my life, I cannot praise them highly enough. But they shouldn’t have to work with these restrictions when their job is hard enough.

If you ring pals or write a complaint a nurse and doctor will spend time they could be seeing patients replying to your complaint. You saw one side you don’t know what was wrong with people so you can’t judge. Complain all you like it won’t change anything. Not saying that is right but only option is to pay more taxes and you wouldn’t want that either would you.

We had something similar, family member had a heart operation and several hours after being discharged he felt really ill and as we live rurally we bundled him in the car and took him straight to A&E rather than wait for an ambulance. We ended up sitting there for several hours before he was seen by a doctor. I've never been so worried.

So sad that this is how much respect and care the government pays the NHS, literally allowing/encouraging it to shrivel up and die and if people die along the way, so be it. Disgraceful

Hi all ,

WarshipWarrior it's just worth everyone noting different areas and hospitals are different. A woman with a baby arrived at a&e via ambulance and just got left there clearly in distress. I had to run to get a dr as she ended up screaming her baby couldn't breathe. The reception staff just gawped at her then said there weren't any drs.

My DC get croup, if they are making a rattling noise when they breathe or the skin is sucking in under their ribs/neck then we call 111 who depending on the age and severity at the time will either send us to AandE or send out an ambulance. The ambulance staff can even sometimes treat at home if a nebulizer is enough. In my experience in my area we always have to go through a&e whether we rock up ourselves or in an ambulance. We avoid Friday/Saturday nights unless it's life or death because (drunk people bleed more I think we were told once?) there are always blood soaked drunks and vomit. Even when I've had toddlers admitted to hospital staying several days, we've still spent an hour or hours in a&e first. Avoiding a&e with littles and going straight to a ward sounds great though, especially for recurring problems.
I hope your family are ok OP.

I’m a mum to a 9 year old and 46 and have been posting on here for many years .
I recently ( 4/5 weeks ago ) had a UTI infection , omg I must get one about every 2 years thank god but when I get one I know excactly what it is and what works for me , which is a certain antibiotic .
To cut a long story short I put up with it all day till about 4pm then called my GP , to be told there was No appointments available that day and I should call 111.??
To be continued

continued ,
So I thought that the receptionist was just fogging me off and I would end up having to go to my Nearest A&E department and wait 8 hours even though it states that the maximum wait should be no longer than 4 hours.
So I called 111 and was straight through to a person( live ) after saying the area I was from and if I was the person who needed assistance .
To be continued

Definitely go to pals...any complaints have to be dealt with and documented!! As an ex A /E staff nurse the more complaints, the more it justifies how bad it is for patients and the staff !!

they told us it was only a matter of time before they missed something and somebody died

I’m very surprised they actually said this to you

I work in a hospital. No matter how stressed, understaffed and over stretched we are I would never say those words to a patient

This is what we call NHS in crisis. A friend who had had good NHS care recently posted on FB about how the NHS is not in crisis because all the doctors and nurses were so caring. Yep, they are (mostly, IME) but so so underfunded. That'll be the Tories then.

Please complain to the hospital trust op, there will be details on its website. And yes, please, everyone, if it's not a life threatening emergency please see your gp, call 111, go to the pharmacy.

Op I am glad your son is ok and you were clearly right to go to A&E.

Continued ,
After about 5 /7 mins giving my symptoms over the phone, I was given a appointment at “out of hours GP “ at my local hospital.
I was seen within 15 minutes of arriving there by a GP and a sample of my urine was taken and I was given a prescription for antibiotics and within 2 hours after taking the pill I was feeling so much better.

@Whyhaveidonethis I had my adapted car outside my house when I was admitted to hospital both times with sepsis- we live 45 miles from the nearest hospital and both times I had to go by ambulance- my husband offered to take me and was refused. So could it be the Doctors at OOH insisting on an ambulance when a patient has a car outside?

Cantkeepaway- I've worked in radiology for over 20 years. I have never come across a GP who doesn't refer patients. You've been severely misinformed. GP's can refer patients for X-rays. Your GP can refer you to any hospital based department or clinic if they deem it appropriate and provide enough clinical information to do so. Out-patients are not referred from a&e. It's very concerning that your GP has misinformed you like this. The physio could also refer your DD for an outpatient X-ray if she is under their care.
They may have wished to do a physical examination first.

I have to say that I would recommend calling 111.
But Do Not Call 111 in a Emergency were a Life is At Risk .

Welcome to the NHS. As someone who works in it, if people saw just how dangerous it was behind the scenes on a daily basis thanks to the bloody Tory’s you’d all be terrified. It’s on its knees and is being failed day in, day out. Only once it’s gone will people realise they could have fought harder to save it.

My OH cut his thumb badly, it was an a&e job. 6 stitches, lost a lot of blood and was close to losing the tip of his thumb, told he needed a redress in 2 days, rang GP at 8 that day, said they could see him next week, went to walk in centre, they wouldn’t redress, went to a pharmacy on the off chance, the only option left was a&e. He can’t get an appointment to get his stitches out either, there needs to be more funding for primary care

Yes complain. I’m quite shocked that no-one was going to do triage for 3 hours when you had a poorly 1 year old with breathing difficulties. The set-up at my hospital when I’ve been in with children is that they wait in a separate area (effectively an A&E for children) and a nurse triages immediately and then there might be a longer wait to see the paediatricians.

Op hope your son doing much better now

People using emergency services inappropriately even happens in America where the costs are enormous. Lots of reasons why, yea some are just at it, but some are struggling to access gp's, or like yourselves the gps let them down, or they're homeless (homelessness doesn't always look obvious, some of those that chose to leave upon hearing the waiting time may have done so because they wanted to avoid losing a hostel place or similar) and so struggle to even get registered with a GP, apparently minor conditions may need urgent treatment because the patient has another underlying condition (pretty sure we - dd and I have been regarded with suspicion at a& me by some but we both have disabilities & chronic health issues that mean SOME ailments require urgent treatment). The GP shortage, lack of or closure of minor injuries and walk in centres, even sexual health clinics means more pressure on a&e, even a&e closures/reduced hours mean next nearest one becomes overwhelmed

Repeatedly (and I'm sure these comments have been made on thread already or will be) on mn threads about a&e

"People shouldn't go to a&e when they're not supposed to"

"They should've gone to minor injuries/walk in centre"

"Why didn't they go gp"

• as per first para as well as the daft there are many who are attending a&e inappropriately NOT because they are stupid or cf but because the system is failing them elsewhere.

But the resources should still be available.

Definitely complain, in your position I would not only complain about the a&e situation but also possibly the gps who didn't dx & treat correctly from sounds of things

"The issue is the chronic and deliberate underfunding of the NHS" absolutely!

"With regard to they state of the NHS, well we get what we vote for." Also very true. I wonder how many on this thread voted Tory?

"which must have cost the nhs multiple times the amount of have had to pay a dentist. It’s insane." Exactly! It doesn't even save money! I've been fobbed off many times by Gp's either self or dd and ended up in a&e due to the ailment deteriorating, if I'd/we'd been dx & treated properly in the first place we wouldn't even have needed to be at a&e

"As an aside I'm loving all the people talking about how everyone else in a&e didn't need to be but that they themselves did, not because it was an actual emergency but it might have been. Mhh hhm. That's how it works, Janet." Always the X as on these threads.

"WE needed to be there because of X y z but them other people (who I don't know didn't ALSO have X y z to consider or a b c damn good reasons to be there) they didn't need to be there" 🙄

Absolutely complain. Something is very broken when sick children are being left waiting.

I took my son to an A&E in Wales last year at the advice of 111. He was 14 months, vomiting, lethargic, no wet nappies and taking on no fluids. We were visiting relatives(we live in Scotland) so no access to out doctor. Got to A&E and one lady was loudly telling everyone how she’d been sitting there was 11 hours since lunchtime that day. Wandering about, eating food, and generally looking not ill. My son was checked over after a couple of hours and we were told we’d have a 9 hour wait to be checked by a doctor. Thankfully he was ok and it turned out to be a bout of Noro Virus but it certainly showed me how awful and misused A&E can be.

Everyone else who had sprained ankles and arms got seen first! They was triaged, splinter/bandaged up and sent home! Surely, SURELY they need to start being prioritised properly

In Some hospitals they have physiotherapists that will see injuries to arms and legs so they would see them and not the more serious issues like yours

I agree through A and E is awful. Last time we were in a had to sit on the floor with my little boy who was really ill while a family of six took up seats. There was the daughter who had a hurt leg and she had with her/ mum, dad, grandma, auntie and uncle.

My leg was in plaster at the time