MIL has been in A&E 17½ hours. AIBU to think this is totally unreasonable

[PearlyShamps]

MIL has pain shooting from her groin, down her leg. Cannot walk or bear weight. GP advised to call 111. They advised to go to A&E. There, at 6pm yesterday, she was told 5 hour wait. She and her husband (both well into there 70s) have now been waiting almost 18 hours. She has been triaged, but not seen by a dr. They have missed 2 meals and a night's sleep. We feel useless and unable to help. Its utterly ridiculous!

Shooting pain and unable to bear weight could be a symtom of a spinal compression which is an emergency. I happen to know this as I have osteoporosis and visited my GP last week for a back problem.
He has referred me for an urgent xray for suspected vertibral fracture and an MRI. No sign of the urgent xray yet. However he repeated to me twice to be sure that if I get certain symptoms including inabilty to bear weight I must go straight to A&E as it's a red flag for spinal compression.

Damn those over 70s for not staying at home and dying quietly.

It is completely unacceptable. The state of our health service is a national disgrace. The basic requirement of a government is to find and provide basic services. They are not doing this hence they are incompetent. People need to hold them to account for this.

its absolutely shocking isn't it?

I have a problem that I've been instructed by neurology and GP I must go to a&e for and have an MRI. The last time I had an ambulance they took an hour (it causes stroke symptoms) and they informed me I'd have a 10 hour wait to be seen, I declined. It would have passed by the time I was seen and I would have been in a situation which made my health worse.

Hope the tests are speedy and they get home soon.

Unfortunately, they can't magic up A&E staff that don't exist (due to things like illness, covid quarantine requirements, unfilled vacancies, holiday rotas on a bank holiday weekend where those with young families and no childcare may have had to take it off, not enough doctors being trained up at our end, the number of European doctors/nurses/etc who have left the UK post-Brexit due to their poor treatment by the country, lack of proper funding vaccine mandates etc.

I feel your frustration. I waited 4 hours last night before I decided it wasn't worth it and I went home. When I try and explain the health care system in this country to family or friends from the country that my parents are from (third world from our point of view) they don't believe me. My partner works fir the NHS and I see the frustration and stress they are under to keep a system going without any support from those in power. The system js failing not because of underfunding or overpaid managers and administrators but because of third party charges for services and equipment. They are bleeding the system dry and setting it up to fail. As someone upt thread said unless we admit it failing to ourselves then nothing will change.

@PearlyShamps I genuinely didn't mean this to sound unsympathetic at all. I spend so much time in hospital I have a lot of sympathy for anyone there, and in no way do I think it's okay a 70 year old couple have been left waiting so long, it is not okay at all.

I was only trying to say sometimes these tests can be run by GPs etc and just because there is a test being done doesn't necessarily make it urgent. If you're in the hospital they'll likely do it there but often they're fairly routine tests that can be done outside hospitals too and that might be a less stressful process.

Fair enough if she was advised to go there, I missed that and that's my mistake.

I'd much rather see a better and properly funded NHS so no one experienced this, my point was just sometimes people don't realise how bad waiting in A&E is (or being on a ward for that matter) and other options might be worth thinking about.

I hope they keep chasing the doctors, it's also okay to ask the receptionist if it would be better to leave and call the GP again - I've seen lots of people in A&E be told they might be better to go home.

That's really all I meant - OPs family have all my sympathy and best wishes.

Why were you in A&E if after 4 hours, you decided it isn't worth it? Surely it's still an emergency after 4 hours?

And NHS admin is NOT overpaid!

This is happening day in day out it is not a secret but the Tories ignore it. I am a frontline NHS nurse and am so scared for what the future holds for the NHS. I see people admitted who have been waiting at home to long, who's condition becomes untreatable. I hear about the A&E waits from senior managers and was amazed to hear ours was over 9 hours with so many patients breaching.

I am not sure many of the people I work with want to continue, what we see and the decisions made on a daily basis is so disheartening.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do believe the NHS is broken beyond repair, this is what the Tories wanted. I like Fixthebone worked under labour and it was so much better, genuinely patient centered.

Its terrible that she has had to wait that long. I wait a few hours and want to jump from a window.

I think the problem with A&E is that it isn't being used what it should be used for (the hint is in the title, accidents and emergencies). We have people clogging up A&E for things which are minor and don't need seeing such a high level of expertise. For example, I recently had a cardiac issue. I got sent to A&E. Rather than having cardiac outpatients slots for emergencies to be seen by cardiology. They saw me and told me to get my GP to refer me to cardiology. They didn't even do the referral directly. A waste of resources and effort.

For those who don't believe people are left waiting so long to be seen: my 79 year-old dad was in A&E in January. Triaged. Then left for over 48 hours. He was in so much pain he'd been given morphine in the ambulance, but was then left without any pain relief for all that time. It was only when he broke down crying that they found him a bed (in a corridor), and he was eventually admitted. I think he has some form of PTSD now, as he can't stop talking (and crying) about how he was treated, and also what he witnessed. The system is broken - and we can only thank the years and years of austerity and underinvestment for that.

I know it's hard to believe but this is not unusual. Read the papers - they're full of similar reports. And it's not the fault of the NHS or NHS staff.

When we were all clapping for the NHS the individual doctors and nurses etc thoroughly deserved our gratitude but the NHS as a whole is broken. It is underfunded and understaffed. The powers that could remedy this use private health providers . I have first hand experience of how much poorer medical provision is now than pre pandemic. My 86 year old dh has three potentially life limiting conditions. His specialist appointment has been moved from October 2021 to September 2022 and we recently had a letter moving it to September 2023! I rang to ask if they were hoping he would die before they saw him which would free up an appointment for someone else to be deferred till 2024 etc.

Agreed

It's the same in the USA. My mother was a victim of Covid, not because she had Covid, but because she was septic and by the time they finally got her seen she was unlikely to make it thru...so following her wishes I brought her home to die. Normally our Emergency Rooms and hospitals do a great job, but Covid has definitely proven too much for them to handle. I feel sorry for everyone involved.

Honestly we need a review and reorganisation of the NHS but people just seem to expect it to carry on with more and more people demanding care. People want everyone else to pay for it and as soon as a potential co payment option comes up people start stating that some people dont even have 5p so lets just leave it as it is.

The NHS is not all about throwing money at it and then it will all be OK. Everyone wants everyone else to fund.

Its not the envy of the world. Its free to a lot of people so what's not to like!

I worked alongside the NHS for nearly 30 years as a major supplier. The waste, the cottage industries, the inability to get things agreed was staggering.

The NHS is dead on its feet. The public know this, and the government knows it as well.
They are just waiting until the situation gets bad enough so that they can bring in privatisation. Dentistry is going the same way
God help us all if we end up like the American system.

The NHS has money. It's in the shit because it's poorly managed and doesn't use resources well.

So, what if someone can't pay then? Is it a case of ''sorry, no care for you''?

As a pp has mentioned I also think you are being unreasonable posting on here. Your time would be better spent going to the hospital, taking food and drink and offering support.

I can never understand why people's first thought is to post on social media.

Go and be with them.

Not sure why it is either / or.

People absolutely SHOULD be highlighting how appalling this is.

OP has already said that hey have food, they have their medication, and her PiL have said they don't want OP and / or their son to come in

Stop quoting the US system as a reason to do fxxk all about changing the way it works. For the poorest of course there will be exceptions but we really do need to do something about the sheer waste of our money on this pie in the sky organisation.

Without giving too much away from my previous role the NHS wont embrace change. They stick with the technology they know even if its on its last legs. They wont move with the times. Procurement for example isnt done centrally. No, no no. Lets have 100's of Procurement Offices rather than just one. A lot of the departments drag their feet with decision making to ensure that they have a job for life. I have said goodbye to it all now because it was just crimimal what they were doing. I worked alongside most of the depts and they were all the same. Didnt want change, didnt want to listen to new ways of working and now we are left with this mess

OK, so DH just went to hosp. Called his Dad who met him outside. My FIL thanked him for coming, gave him a hug and took the bag of goodies for my MIL - even though he has loads there already from the shop.

He refused to come home, but said he will come home if she is admitted, and myself or DH will take over then. Other than that there's nothing else we can do other than wait. She is having tests, the ball is rolling, and for that we are very thankful.

Thanks for all the good wishes x

If you read all the OPs posts she explains this. And the last thing a&e waiting rooms need is additional relatives sitting around with food taking up seats that patients could sit on when they aren’t even wanted/needed. Offering ‘support’ by rocking up uninvited in the waiting room wouldn’t have helped anyone.

I spend a lot of time in the hospital and associated units and, although I think some of the stories here are terrible, I would say my last experience of A & E was good. I was had been experiencing abdominal pain and vomiting on and off for a couple of months. I thought it might be associated with the attempt to start peritoneal dialysis which we were trying at the time. However, late one night when I realised my tummy button was actually bleeding I rang the relevant ward and was advised to go to A & E (I’m under a major London hospital for my renal problems so I got a cab there). I arrived about 2:30am and was investigated, scanned etc and in theatre for a strangulated hernia by about 9. Ended up staying in nearly a week but I don’t consider I was badly treated.
I don’t know what the answer is to the present crisis but there are at least some good pockets!

@Mamamia7962

I can never understand why people's first thought is to post on social media.

Yes, my first thought - almost 18 hours in.

Do you really think thats what happens in other European countries? You actually believe that in Germany, The Netherlands, France, etc, their excellent healthcare systems only provide healthcare to employed people? You have never bothered to google to find out that the State provides healthcare to those who do not work?

You do realise that there are other countries in the world apart from the US and Britain?