To think 20 hour waiting time in my A and E is crazy...

[Meltinthemiddle]

What the hell is happening to our NHS? Is this all down to covid and GP's not seeing patients face to face or people mis using the system. There's been alot of GP bashing recently and I do feel sorry for some of them as no doubt they are working flat out but their appointment system is shocking!

If you have to wait 20 hours to be seen in an A&E then you don’t need to be there.

It is because people treat A&E like a walk in gp surgery. Look at mn for a snapshot 'I have severe period pain and heavy bleeding should I go A&E?' 'Yes it would be sepsis, or a life threatening hemorrhage, go NOW!'.

All practices offer econsults and phone consults and will then see those who require examining.

Our a&e is the same round here. Many doctors surgery still not back to normal here from covid which means people are going straight to hospital instead.

I work in an A&E. Our wait time is very rarely under 4 hours and mostly 10-12 hours at the moment. It's a mixture of lots of things, people not being able to get an appointment with their GP, people not bothering trying to get an appointment with their GP's, 111 sending everyone down even when they should see their GPS, frequent attenders, a massive shortage of staff and a massive lack of mental health help. At this point I truly think it's beyond fixing.

It's because people seem to think A&E is the golden gate. Literally every day someone posts on here about something they have seen their GP about, maybe even waiting for a referral and still they either think k they should go to A&E or other posters will tell them to go to A&E. it's not a fast track to a routine appointment but many people think it is.

How many of the people waiting that long are there because they don’t need to be?

I am guessing that very few of them have no sort of treatment at all during that time. In many cases I would imagine it’s waiting for beds to become free on wards delaying things

Loads of GP practices are back to normal, it was normal to have a telephone appointment and then seen if necessary.

You can't magic up appointments with staff that aren't there!!

There are a lack of GP's, there's a huge lack of money. There are nurses and HCA's leaving general practice the pay and working conditions are not comparable to the NHS.

People want instant fixes rather than just letting there bodies get over minor illness and viruses, you only have to look on here to know that! The amount of people that tell people to go to A and E for self limiting reasons or reasons that a pharmacist could sort you out for.

Hospital staff are broken, lots are off sick, people are leaving due to crap working conditions, poor pay and lack of appreciation by the government. A cleaner can get paid £15 why would a HCA and qualified nurse work for less than that and being abused on a daily basis, they can get paid more in other jobs.

People need to start moaning at the government and not the people on the front line.

I think if you have a good GP who is accessible, it's easy to judge other people going to A&E for things you think they shouldn't. But many people have a really shocking time trying to get any help for relatively serious issues, you can't blame them for going to the one place they think they can get some help.

Yes there are time wasters but there have always been time wasters, it seems the real problem now is people have nowhere else to go.

So why are GPs not doing face to face appointments so we know? The problem with appointments was pre covid.

Completely agree their anger should be directed at the government not GPs. My only criticism with go surgery is the actual appointment system.

Forgive my lack of grammar, I'm multi tasking!

I'm also pissed of NHS staff being constantly abused when it's the blood government you should be directing your frustration at!

Not very appointment needs to be F2F, unless you need physically examining why does it need to be F2F.

There is telemedicine, photo's some of it is actually much better than F2F because what you see is larger and clearer.

It's not the appointment system its too many patients for the amount of GP's and HCP's available. As I've said you cannot make an appointment if there isn't the staff there.

The surgery I work at, the GP's etc are sometimes there until 8-9pm. They have had no break as patients have been continually added to their duty list.

@BingBongToTheMoon

If you have to wait 20 hours to be seen in an A&E then you don’t need to be there.

Couldn’t agree more. So many people just use it as an extended gp service.

I recently waited nearly 7 hours with what ended up being severe hypoglycaemia. I, at times, was passing out, incoherent unable to stand or walk. When triaged I had tachycardia (a very high heart rate) but they never took a BM (test to check blood sugar)and I was sent back out to the waiting area.

I was left for nearly 7 hours in need of urgent care because they thought I was drunk. I couldn’t advocate for myself (my oh was allowed to stay with me as I was semi conscious, when he tried to get me help he was told it wasn’t my turn yet), I had already had a seizure.

(Not even mentioning the fact that when my oh found me on the bathroom floor having a seizure, dialled 999 was told I was low priority, unconscious and seizing, and we would wait 4+ hours for them to attend).

A very broken NHS.

I actually feel sorry for GPs. Alot of people are blaming them for a and e crisis l.

Friend of mine worked as a doctor on A&E and 90% of cases were not true emergencies. They were usually long-standing health problems that escalated to the point where people panic and go to A&E. There is also the mistaken belief that going at crazy time (eg 1am) helps you escape the faff of making appointments and waiting and you skip the queue to see a doctor. A&E are not equipped to provide treatments or diagnosis for many things, they can only offer pain relief/antibiotics and make sure you're not dying at that point in time.

This is an unpopular opinion but I feel the NHS is broken to the point that people need to go private if they're truly worried about their health. Why put your own life on the line just to prove a point that healthcare should and needs to be free? In the vast majority of other countries, healthcare is not free and people accept that. The "free" version of healthcare for uninsured patients is so poor that it's normal for people in many countries to pay for doctors.

There's a bizarre entitlement in the UK that medical care NEEDS to be free which is very strange for people who have lived in other countries. Paying for healthcare is seen as a perversion but if your car or washing machine breaks then you obviously need to pay for that too. A private consultation is about the same as car repairs, one night's hotel or other unexpected expenses that should be budgeted for in an average household. I know friends who doggedly wait months for their NHS appointments whilst in ever worsening health but refusing to contemplate spending that £100 to get an answer immediately.

As the title suggests, if more people went private they would be doing their own health a favour as well as relieving the collective burden on GPs and A&E. The problem is obviously not enough doctors to begin with so the free services are stretched to the limit. This is common across many countries, including highly taxed German and Scandinavian countries. In many European countries it's perfectly normal to use insurance covered doctors if you can but also pay for private care if you need it. You don't need private insurance either. If it's just 1-2 appointments per year then it's cheaper to pay out entirely out of pocket. The major advantage is that you get your health seen at a point where hasn't escalated into something more serious and you also helped relieved pressure on the system for other patients.

I've recently had to go through a and e that had an 8 hour wait. I was triaged and seen within an hour luckily. Waiting room was full with a queue to book in going right out the door. I was in a lot of pain and two ladies also waiting were talking to me to keep my mind off it. Both were there due to ongoing issues that would usually have been kept on top of with outpatient appointments with their consultants. But the pandemic stopped clinics. This meant their conditions worsened. GP can't help much. Complications then arise and they've had to present at A and E.

Same thing happened with my youngest. Seen by dermatologist since birth for a rare skin condition. She's a teen now and with dermatologist help and immune suppressants prescribed by him she was living a relatively pain free life. Then pandemic hits, no clinic, no meds review or blood tests to check on her liver, she gets sick very quickly and ends up in hospital 4 times that year. All could of been avoided with continuation of clinics even remotely.

It is because people treat A&E like a walk in gp surgery. Look at mn for a snapshot 'I have severe period pain and heavy bleeding should I go A&E?' 'Yes it would be sepsis, or a life threatening hemorrhage, go NOW!'.

Severe pain and heavy bleeding can be sepsis. That kind of thing is exactly what A&E is for. Unless you don't trust a woman to know what is abnormal for her? People don't just post on Mumsnet asking if they should go to A&E if they're having a normal period. Of all the examples to pick, you pick the one that could genuinely need attention. Honestly.

A woman once posted on that subject and she did turn out to have sepsis. Her life was saved because MNers urged her to go to hospital. It's in classics somewhere.

It is wrong to use A&E like a doctor's surgery.

But everyone, A&E staff included, are aware that until GPs go back to work, this will continue.

Before anyone with a skin in the game jumps in, GPs are not working hard.

@BingBongToTheMoon

If you have to wait 20 hours to be seen in an A&E then you don’t need to be there.

Exactly. And even if the GP won't see you there are other options - a minor injuries unit, see a pharmacist. And there's the out of hours doctor for nights and weekends too.

Truth is lots of people are waiting long times for first consultant appointments and think they can bypass the wait by turning up at A&E because they know they might get a scan or if they're admitted they may get to see a specialist. That's not the GPs fault, that's a failure of the government who have been underfunding the health service and closing down hospitals for years.

Not sure why people are so fixated on face to face GP appointments. I find that telephone consultations at least initially, are much more convenient.

The whole system needs to change. They can't admit anyone from A&E as there are no beds free on the wards. Too many people go to A&E when they don't need to. You only have to read threads on here where people are advised to go to A&E for all sorts of things that aren't Accidents or Emergencies.

People use A&E irresponsibly, I have a colleague who goes every 2-3 weeks for various bizarre reasons, the latest being dry skin on her scalp. She then posts rants on social media about waiting for a long time and not being given the treatment she has demanded for her pretend illnesses.

I’ve been to A&E a few times, sometimes for me, sometimes for my son, we’ve always been triaged within the hour and either treated or admitted within 1-3 hours of that. When I had an appendicitis I was admitted within the hour and operated on that evening.

@Lovelymincepies

Not very appointment needs to be F2F, unless you need physically examining why does it need to be F2F.

There is telemedicine, photo's some of it is actually much better than F2F because what you see is larger and clearer.

There are lots of reasons to by F2F is better for some. It's wrong to assume we are all the same and don't need that F2F. I'm autistic and I can't process a phone consultation the same as a F2F. I would imagine a lot of people with mental health issues would also benefit from being in the room with the doctor. It's not always just about the 'of it needs to be examined' aspect.

I haven't bothered calling my GP since covid began because I can't deal with the process or the phone appointment. Some would say that means I don't really need a doctor but the truth is I'm actually awful at taking care of myself and very much do need to see my doctor.