I'm so fucking sick of a and e wait times

[cutrtain]

As a working mother to a toddler in nursery, I'm just fucking done with how long it takes to get help in a and e for my child.

It's starting to make me not want to go, in situations that I would have maybe gone in the past.

I'm absolutely exhausted. It's always 3/4 hours wait, at least.

I'm just so done with it. It's a disgrace.

Our walk in centre got moved from the centre of town. The old building became apt only and they put the walk in centre right next to A&E. once they triage half the people just get sent next door to the hospital.

There are no GP apts, no gotodoc, so people are unfortunately needing to go to hospital once an illness that could be sorted with antibiotics gets to the point of no return.

Also, fast breathing and a fever is a marker for sepsis, it will almost always be sent to A&E

I also think ED wait times would go down significantly if GP surgeries were more accessible.
Trying to see a GP at my surgery is like hunger games. It is a joke.
With incompetent GP receptionists 'triaging'

Never, ever wish for your child to be triage category 1.

People ARE using a&e as a gp service.

Can’t exactly blame them though. Though their ailments really aren’t serious enough for a&e, but they can still be very painful and it’s imo inhumane to leave them for the two months it takes to get a gp appointment around here. These things could be sorted out quickly and medication prescribed to help by a gp BUT these people cannot access that.

There are three gp surgeries in this too rapidly growing town, all closed list.

Four new massive housing developments going up though, that’ll help.

Not a dig just pointing out something that is the case for me a d could be the same for op and or others. We have no minor injuries unit or walk in department in my town. Our urgent care is located in our a and e dept literally there's three windows with three receptionists.

Window one takes your details and asks what's wrong and then tells you to go to which nunber you needed.

Window 2 is a and e check in.

Window 3 is urgent care check in.

Both use the same triage room too.

It's not just that though. Triage don't always get it right.

Last year I spent 6 hours in paediatric a&e watching streams of parents with small children get them checked out and be sent home with antibiotics- classic gp stuff. Meanwhile in the corner my hulking great teen was quietly getting sicker and sicker. By 2am when a doctor finally saw him his kidneys were packing up and it really was a emergency. By 4am he was on a drip, had emergency bloods, ultrasound and xrays and was admitted to the ward. He was in for nearly a month.

Same as Tameside. Theres literally just tameside hospital and the walk in centre there that’s covering the whole borough

Last time I went to A&E the nurse who did my DCs Obs was so, so exhausted, I was sat there watching her honestly yawn every other word. She looked like she hadn't slept in days and the waiting room was full with a queue out the door (Children's A&E) I understand your frustration but my heart absolutely goes out to those working in that environment.

The problem with ours is that out of the six of them, there are only ever two of them there at any time. They are all part time, so it’s effectively only two GPs at the surgery, not six. They also don’t do half the things GPs did decades ago, like blood tests.

We have a friend who is an A and E Consultant in London. They are struggling with ambulances - drunks and addicts falling over in the street at the end of a night out and ringing for an ambulance because they are taken to a hospital. They take up the ambulance, the ambulance has to queue at the hospital so is iff the road, they take up a space in A and E, behave badly often, upset staff and other patients, make a fuss and then discharge themselves when the effects of whatever they have taken wear off. The financial cost is also huge. They are trialling a system- not sure exactly how it works- where instead of the ambulance taking them to A and E they are given a taxi voucher to get home. It is proving effective he says.

Perhaps we need to think more creatively about how to resolve some of the issues. He says mental health pickups are another big problem and A and E is no use at all to these patients. The calls come from them- at point of crisis- or neighbours at their wits end, or family/friends unable/unwilling to to cope and concerned. An ambulance is sent, it can take ages to get them to co-operate, the same process at the hospital and there is no real help available in A and D. They discharge themselves or are discharged the next day back to a community team. Surely we can do better with a system that is not A and E based.

Things like high fever and constipation are not emergencies unless they have been going in for several days. Why not see a GP or call 111 instead of going to A&E?

A&E is busy because people who don't need to be there are clogging it up. Going to A&E shouldn't be a regular occurrence if you have normal healthy children!

Constipation kills. Don't ever stop people seeking medical care.

But OOH GP is available overnight. I do nightshifts as an OOH GP and finish at 0800.

I have seen my GP every 6 weeks for over a year. Every appointment is followed by a repeat blood test and every time I have to go to another appointment a week later for the blood test with a nurse who spends two minutes taking blood to send to the hospital. Why can't the GP just take the blood. 2 minutes.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2023/07/new-nhs-campaign-to-help-spot-early-signs-of-life-threatening-constipation-in-people-with-a-learning-disability/

A &E waiting times have always been long.

You are triaged on the way in and seen according to the outcome. 3 to 4 hours is not that long. In the meantime, you were in the right place should urgent treatment be required.

I can understand why you are feeling frustrated and exhausted if you DC have been ill.

This is 100% the problem.

We had to wait for hours in a&e to get antibiotics for dd.

The next GP appointment available was January (This was in November) and the receptionist was incredibly scathing about emergency appointments, though welcomed me to try the rat race every morning at 8am if I wanted to leave dd to get worse for another 24 hours.

Luckily the poor overworked staff at a&e were very understanding when I explained why we were there. They didn’t judge us for doing what was necessary, but the paediatrician couldn’t hide his disdain for the local gp surgery.

We’ve also got a town full of closed list surgeries full of part time gp’s, and an endless stream of new build developments. Fuck knows what it will be like soon. Hunger games is an apt description.

Tacotortoise I hope your son made a full and rapid recovery. What a scare that must have been.

I have 2 kids 15 and 17 and in those 17 years can count on the fingers of one hand the times I've had to take them to A and E. Why are you going so often?

Agree OP. I had to wait five hours last month with my child who needed stitches.

Ds has been seen by out of hours GP after midnight they do exist!!

I think you e been super unlucky with illness OP. If you’re advised to go, you kind of have to go 🤷‍♀️. My only advice is to make friends with a pediatrician, when we’ve had those borderline cases, my BFF being a specialist means we consult her, she can call in scrips for us so we only went in when our DC had pneumonia and then were seen quickly. Oh and we live in the states.

Tacotortoise that must have been horrible. It happened to me once that I was put at the back of the queue because I'd very carefully cleaned and dressed my injury in order not to scare my kids...

Everyone coming in off the street clutching a crumpled napkin to their wound was seen first. They did a bit of a double take when they finally got round to looking at what was under my dressing. They can't always get it right I guess.

But at least that wasn't dangerous, unlike your teen's situation. I hope he's OK now.

I used to work in a large trauma centre a&e.
I've since come out and am now community as I just couldn't take it anymore.
20 years I worked in the acute setting.

The stuff people turn up with is mind-boggling and I think people should be charged for wasting emergency medicines time.
Pre-covid.
Knee pain 5 months
Thumb pain 2 hours
Fever and runny nose 6 hours were all frequently seen.
Even 20 years in I couldn't get over the things people would deem acceptable to rock up with and then have the audacity to complain about waiting.

That said an uncontrollable fever , pr bleeding, breathing difficulties are reasons to be seen in a&e
It's the 5 month knee pain people who shouldn't be there.

I find it odd everyone either saying these wait times are fine or those who think a Labour government will change this.