To think if you can wait for a GP you shouldn't be in A&E

[Alfenstein]

Was in A&E overnight last night and was confused and then a bit annoyed about a situation and wanted to see what others thought

I arrived at A&E for 18:00, was told it was very busy (when is it not) and the waits were 5+ hours. I was triaged and sat in the waiting room

At 02:00 a nurse came in and made an announcement. Saying that waits were still really long because they've got 15 ambulances waiting but there is a GP based at the hospital who will be in from 08:00, if people would prefer to go home and come back they would be seen by the GP.

And half of the waiting room got up and left!

AIBU to think that if you can wait until morning you don't need to be in A&E.

Surely the issue isn't that urgent or an emergency if you can bugger off home and come back in the morning!

Recently attended a&e with son who had bad right side pain (ended up ruling out appendicitis but needed checking urgently). We went through urgent care before being sent to the a&e department. While waiting for blood results a woman came in with her child’s eczema. That surely could have been one for the doctor in the morning??

I was recently taken to A&E by ambulance. The emergency ambulance was sent to me by 111, despite my protests that I didn't warrant an ambulance. Paramedics arrived and disagreed with me, filled me full of paracetamol and morphine and shipped me off to A&E. By the time I arrived at our local A&E an hour after paramedics, I was chatting away, colour back in my cheeks and felt loads better and probably looked like I shouldn't have been in A&E, once the painkillers kicked in. I was mortified at being there and probably would've walked out if I was told to come back the next day, as I always think someone is worse off than me.

Unfortunately, I was quite poorly and didn't realise how poorly I really was. I had a serious case of cholecystitis and biliary colic. Imagine if had gone home without treatment, thinking I'd be able to return in the morning, or if the lady on 111 hadn't recognised I needed urgent help and agreed to cancel the ambulance. Luckily, my admission fast tracked my planned surgery, which went ahead once the infection and inflammation subsided.

There are always going to be timewasters but I very much doubt 70 people were all there for shits and giggles.

Fwiw, all of our local 'walk in centres' and 'urgent care' centres have been closed, some pre covid, and some of our local services (childrens A&E, Stroke unit, heart unit plus more) have been moved to another hospital 8 miles away, with the view of reducing down as much as they can in our local hospital. We have a 'minor injuries' unit for adults, but to access it you need to be triaged in A&E first. There are no daily GP services available within our local hospital.

On face value you’d think that, but maybe she’s been trying for months to get an appointment, eczema can be really painful, when I get it on my hands I can’t even do anything without it really hurting, I imagine that’s tough for a child.

my dad had a bad infection that he couldn’t get a doctors appointment for (he had been told 3 weeks) so it got worse and worse till he ended up having to go to A&E and wait there 8 hours to be given some antibiotics and pain meds, the infection had spread and he was in more pain simply cause the doctor wouldn’t see him.

None of our 3 local(ish) hospitals have a walk in GP service, one of them DOES have a referral “acute GP service” which you can access if your own GP refers you there.
It genuinely wouldn’t occur to me that a hospital WOULD have a walk in service available, and from your OP it sounds more as if it’s usually by referral, but because of the backlog they were opening it up to walk in.
YABU quite unreasonable to assume that all those who left were not emergencies.
However, I think it’s indisputable that SOME people use A&E inappropriately
We need a better system than is currently being run.

OP, what is your explanation for why the people left when the nurse made the announcement about the GP service in the morning?

Since you are insisting they all knew about this service already, why did the announcement prompt them to leave?

Some GP surgeries are absolutely hopeless too, and not just for getting appointments in reasonable times. I switched surgeries, after a practice nurse told me my tummy pain, coupled with acid reflux (suffered since 2000 and been on medication for), vomiting and recently bile reflux and aspiration of said bile reflux was all caused by my weight. My 'weight related tummy pain' was diagnosed over the phone by a nurse who has never met me, let alone examined me. New GP sent me straight to hospital for a scan, turned out I had multiple gallstones and cholecystitis, and the pain/feeling I had was caused by my gallbladder being so inflamed. Following my surgery to remove everything, I'd been told that I'd been lucky by my surgeons, as it was so full of stones, sludge, bile and who knows what other toxins, I'd been feeling so shit for ages because of it poisoning me.

Not everything is as clear cut as 'see your GP'.

On the flip side you get people who should go to A&E wanting to see a GP "because I'll be waiting hours up there" or people who go to A&E have tests and don't wait to be seen. Then they ring the surgery to see a GP and the test results are at A&E. If the GP can access them then they are most put out that they've got to go back to A&E for treatment making their wait even longer.

What people fail to realise is that A&E is a completely different specialty to GP and do not have the same resources to deal with long standing/non-acute problems. You wouldn’t see a dermatologist for a cardiac problem. A&E is not the right place to go for long standing issues or non-emergencies. If it is not an accident or an emergency then you shouldn’t be there. If you don’t like it then write to your MP, it’s the government who are responsible for funding enough doctors and they are the reason we are in this mess!

On one hand yes of course you are correct.

But maybe they’d tried to see a GP but couldn’t which is why now in A and E - and no prospect of seeing own GP the next morning. So the promise of GP appointment in morning is appealing.

Whilst I don't think it is fair to judge any of those people as you don't know their circumstances, and whilst there is a huge issue with getting seen by medical professionals for non urgent conditions, I do think people need to understand that A&E is for emergencies and accidents that can't wait to be treated. By visiting A&E when you don't really need to be there, you are increasing the pressure on an already overwhelmed service and preventing those who do need emergency care from getting it.

My Gran fell last week and couldn't move due to a break and fracture. The ambulance couldn't come for 9 hours, leaving her stuck on the floor during this time with us too scared to move her in case we injured her further. She then spent the entire next day waiting in the ambulance as there were no beds. The NHS is on its knees thanks to a government that couldn't give a crap and would rather see it privatised. I feel so sorry for the staff who have to work in these conditions. It must really p**s them off to see people turning up in A&E with non urgent medical needs.

Being forced to wait doesn’t mean you can afford to wait. I could go home with a broken bone because my kids need picking up and there’s nobody else to do it. That doesn’t mean it’s not an accident that constitutes an emergency.

The NHS is on its knees and it's not the hardworking nurses and doctors fault it's the management and political decisions! I've waited in a and e recently with my husband who is having heart problems and we waited 8 hours! While we were there people were coming in with headaches and reception were very vocal in asking why they had come to a snd e? The answer is people are struggling to get GP appointments and so just turn up at a snd e.

Minor Injuries, shuts at 9.

Out of Hours GP - appointments only, no walk in, accessible only via 111 triage system.

A&E is the only walk in, no appointment, 24/7 urgent care facility in my area.

GP - online bookable appointments (none available), telephone booking, queue for an hour, none available, try again tomorrow.

It's easy to say folk should do this or that, but not all conditions that need to be seen are 'life or death' or 'if you were ill enough to need this you wouldn't care about sitting in a&e for 9 hours'.

Waits are now so long we've gone way past 'well this is a bit boring and annoying' and into 'these waits are causing people serious pain and worsening their conditions'.

I wouldn't have left, honestly. If I looked up and saw two dozen people who were leaving and planning a return at 8am for one GP - how long is that going to take?

My 'weight related tummy pain' was diagnosed over the phone by a nurse who has never met me, let alone examined me. New GP sent me straight to hospital for a scan,
Being overweight is a massive risk factor for gallstones though so the nurse wasnt so far off..

This.

Here if you go to A&E you see the nurse first who then decides if your to stay there or go next door to the urgent care centre.
So much better, realistically everywhere with an A&E would have the same but in reality they don't.

Some people do take the piss, but some actually just don't know where to go and what to do and many will panic maybe due to poor mental health.

Our Minor Injuries can’t X Ray which makes it useless for quite a wide range of ‘minor’ injuries aka is it a fracture or a sprain. You have to go to A&E. however as a walking wounded you wait fucking forever in A&E as it’s blindingly obvious when you walk in not in that much pain and can describe exactly the minor injury you’ve done eg rolled ankle but can’t put weight in it or fallen and put wrist out, that you are not likely to keel over and have a more serious episode. Muscular/Skeletal injuries is exactly what they should be dealing with in MIU, but without X Ray / MRI it’s not great. Generally fit and healthy sports/DIY fractures are usually in and out v quick once seen so if those people could just be seen elsewhere in a take a ticket wait in the queue service it would give a lot more space to triage patients that need more investigations better suited to A&E

This is an interesting statistic. I wonder what people like @CherryColaRoller think about the fact that more than 1 in 3 cancer diagnoses are made in A&E when they are calling people pos for going to A&E.

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/07/more-than-third-uk-cancer-patients-diagnosed-in-emergency

There are so many problems with our erratic and struggling medical services. Long delays with ambulances. People struggling to get GP appointments.

Whilst there might be some piss takers, I really can't see the point of blaming people trying to use a service. It's actually the service that's the problem. We all know that.

Unfortunately she was MILES off as she never actually diagnosed me or referred me for anything. Was more interested in pushing Orlastat at me and to come back when I've lost weight. She's never clapped eyes on me before

I also don't think 10 and a half stone is 'overweight', regardless of what the BMI scale says. I have a 30inch waist and 40H bust, my boobs are probably about 2stone! If I was the 7 stone 3lb that the BMI scale recommends, I'd look like a corpse.

Either way, the OP is about people in A&E and comments about people not 'looking ill enough to be there'. Had I followed the advice of this nurse, I probably would've wound up a lot worse than I did.

*People are using the wrong service

Making it harder for those who actually need said service

It's not that difficult is it?*

Yep it seems it is difficult.

Full Ambulances aren't queued up outside A&Es with people waiting to go in because people are using the wrong services. The corridors aren't full of people waiting on trolleys because of people using the wrong services.

God alive.

The people using the wrong services will be sat in reception not being seen.