Hospital question!

[Polkadotter]

This may be incredibly obvious but it’s something I don’t really understand!

if someone is admitted to hospital or a&e and needs some kind of scan or test, can it not happen overnight or at the weekend?

for context, I was unwell and needed some tests, including an ultrasound and scope before being discharged. It wasn’t available over the weekend and had to be done the following week. I was absolutely fine to wait for it but it needed to be done

Please don’t think i’m criticising the staff for it not being available, that’s NOT what I’m doing at all. I just hadn’t realised things like that weren’t available over the weekend or overnight. What if someone was in a car accident or had a stroke and really needed a CT scan or MRI scan or some other test but it was at the weekend and wasn’t available. Would they just have to wait or would they give them the scan if necessary? I know they can do X-rays 24/7 7 days a week, but what if someone needed another test?!

just curious and wondered if anyone could shed some light on it!

Just realised this is a zombie thread!

I had to have a scan in October 2022 on a Sunday when I went into maternity triage. It wasn't got a pregnancy ultrasound but for my liver and gallbladder. I had it all done on the Sunday I went in. I was actually surprised the ultrasound place was open on Sunday's!

I would think a lot of the specialist staff would be on call for emergencies but not necessarily available for non life threatening situations.

I think it depends on the urgency of it.

When pregnant I had a problem with my leg...I was pretty sure it was a severe calf strain but they wanted to rule out DVT...it was 4pm on a Friday afternoon.

Said I needed an ultrasound on my leg to check for a dvt but was told that couldn't be done until after the weekend as the sept wasn't open so I ended up having to have daily heparin injections over the weekend instead (going back to maternity triage each day for them) as a precaution.

Lo and behold when I had the ultrasound there was no DVT. It would've saved the hospital (and me) time if the ultrasound had been done on the Friday because if the repeat visits for heparin injections and dr review.