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

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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.

OP oddly sanctimonious crowd here tonight. YANBU. Perhaps your area is worse than others or your gp practice particularly disengaged, but you clearly aren't the problem.

DH ended up in A&E at 4am on a Tuesday morning after a phone call to NHS111. There were a lot of people waiting to be seen with self inflicted problems and DH ended up being put on the wrong ward as his wasn’t self inflicted. DH was complaining of back pain and feeling like his leg was in a vice. He ended up having surgery on the Wednesday and kicked out on the Thursday. A lot of self inflicted injuries don’t help wait times but they can get things done when needed.

Unless it was internal stitches to stem some serious blood loss in an internal organ, I would hazard a guess that your wait was totally justified.

Lobby your MP and use your vote wisely

It's been mentioned over and over already, but services just can't keep up with an ever increasing demand. If we could go back to the level of demand just 10 years ago we could crush waiting times in A&E and GP access would be a sinch with the capacity with have now.

I work in a GP surgery in an ACP role, as a minimum 40% of my patients in the day will be for things that just didn't need an assessment but they've exaggerated to get the appointment - say their childs struggling with pain/breathing unable to swallow - only when they arrive it's a 5 day history of sore throat in otherwise well child and parents demanding antibiotics because it's been going on to long. I always assess as routine but the feedback I get from supervising GPs is that I spend to long you know when they walk in the room they don't need an assessment so just spend 2-3 minutes listening to the history, then reassure them normal symptoms for viral infection and tell them to drink some water... It's the same at A&E, droves of people wanting themselves or their children checked out for minor ailments that just don't need investigating but they take up space and time. Also, and I wouldn't use this as a personal defence if I made a mistake, but they absolutely lead to a situation where the presumption is that the patient is lying and exaggerating symptoms or adding in history/just another time waster do the minimum investigation required and get them out the door.

The proper way to fix things is very difficult/probably impossible - a massive education drive so people can recognise self limiting symptoms better, sort the breakdown of society - increasing support/advice available/passing of knowledge.... and more. The alternative way to 'fix' things is to charge at the point of use which just feels inevitable 1 way or another, when people have to pay x pounds to get 'checked out' many will stop, some will suffer greatly from this obviously. But that's clearly the way things are going, otherwise we need to find ever increasing billions to train up vastly more healthcare staff to work in larger hospitals/gp centres all over the country.

You waited four hours in A&E with a child who couldn't breath?

Self inflicted does not matter. If someone needs care, they need care and it does not matter how the injury happened.
How and why did you know so much about the other patients and why they were there?

YANBU. Your country is fucked. Mine's not far behind but at least we don't sit around defending the idea that a child who can't breathe is a waste of urgent care.

The reason why a&e is so full is because people go when they shouldn't.

Always ring 111 and ask their advice before going to a&e. Obviously if it's a bad injury or emergency then go straight away.

Some people treat it like a trip to the doctors.

The staff have enough pressure in the winter months without people moaning. Yes it's not great but we could also do our bit by not treating it like a gps.

@LuluBlakey1 taking blood with you in the chair might seem like a 2 minute job, but it’s not. The request has to be made on IT system/stickers or forms done, hand washing (2 mins) before setting clean tray set out, getting you in position/tourniquet on, hand washing before touching you (2 mins). You might then leave, bottles labeled and checked into bags, more handwashing (2 mins) and then dropping them to a collection point so they’re not sat on the GP desk all day etc. so actually adds about 10 mins. That’s another patient that could be seen. Much better suggestion would be to have available phlebotomists

@Perfectlystill well they changed it last time...

As someone who is a hcp in this dept, posts like this whilst I understand the frustration, it’s really disheartening. We don’t make people wait on purpose - ever.

The inappropriately loud mouth medical staff told DH why they were moving him to a different ward.

Where we live, about 18 months ago, there was a big push on using Livi appointments. We were told locally they had purchased 100,000 Livi appointments- it was going to solve all the pressure on GPs.
Never hear anything about it now. Is it still around? It is never mentioned by our GP- who was a big supporter of it initially.

Locally GP surgeries here now work together to run an additional out of hours surgery in the evenings and at weekends (Saturdays). It is based in a different surgery every weekend/week but accessible to patients from all participating surgeries. Our GP was telling me it has proved really popular with people who work full-time and are happy to have appointments locally between 5pm and 9pm or on a Saturday. He sounded as if he was pleased that an 'innovative' idea was successful. It's a surprise to me that he is surprised by that.

You can book private MRI scans at our local hospital in the evenings and at weekends when the scanner is not being used by the NHS. You just go online and book it and pay (£500). You don't need a referral. You can then take it to a private surgeon (for example) if you have hip problems. My question is why are the NHS not using the scanner- there is a waiting list for MRI scans. I presume the private company employs a technician who already works there- he wears a little badge on his NHS top with the name of the company on it. Why can't the NHS employ him to do it if he wants to work the extra time?

This is where 111 struggle! 'Can't breath' often translates to 'has an occasional cough' during the assessment. But the systems so overloaded the exacerbating asthma patient can be stuck behind them in the triage queue so it's absolutely not impossible.

The last time my little one had a temp of 40+, high resp rate and high heart rate he had urosepsis yet people here are saying that a high temp isn't A&E worthy.

@SleepyRich they saw how he was breathing on a video call and said I need to go straight there or they'll call an ambulance.

Also take no notice of the people saying go to your GP!!!! If in doubt always take a child to A&E with those symptoms!!! High temp could be meningitis, trouble breathing could be severe asthma attack. Better be safe than sorry!!!

No. In a country with good health care a person would not wait hours and hours for stitches to be put in. There'd be a minor injuries clinic they could attend and they'd be seen in a timely manner.

I was a bit horrified when my ds waited 3 hours for his "chest pain" triage. I had kind of expected to be rushed through at least to triage point. I thought they didn't muck about with central chest pain.

Turned out to be pericarditis btw. Good job it wasn't a heart attack. Once they saw the ECG they did become a lot more attentive!

Waiting room was chock full of under 5s with coughs, literally 20 of them. They were all poorly but not A and E poorly.

Not in my part of London (ie not the middle of nowhere!) OOH GP closes at 8am. That's it until 8am the next morning. Our choices then are one hospital with kids A&E, or another that has an urgent care centre, but all the kids get sent to paeds A&E anyway.

Unfortunately, we have been prolific users of A&E since my DD was born. Midwives sent us to A&E with feeding concerns (low birth weight, severe reflux, not feeding well,jaundice). An accident. A very high fever lasting more than five days and a fast heart rate (query kawasaki disease, bloods for sepsis done, discharged as viral and later dx with ear infection and chest infection), more severe feeding issues (sent by a private paeds Dr as he was so concerned, but not the right infrastructure in the private sector to treat paeds who are acutely unwell) and vomiting for several days with previous low blood sugar (required antisickness medication, which did the trick). Twice needed an ambulance due to choking on vomit and turning blue as a small baby. However, we've managed bronchiolitis at home as well as all the usual coughs, colds, fevers, and covid.

Sometimes, you're just unlucky and need to use A&E more than you'd like. Imagine if OP didn't take her kid on medical advice, and then they became severely unwell. She'd have social services on her doorstep! She isn't a Dr, and it's wrong that PP are trying to make her feel guilty for following advice from NHS staff!

However I will say OP, 3/4 hours is good. I've been in A&E with a small baby bought in by ambulance for choking and turning blue and not seen a Dr for EIGHT hours. I assume 24 hours away from home if we need to go to the hospital. I've also changed GP practice to one much more helpful. The last one just used to direct me to OOH when their daily appointments were taken. OOH were then inevitably full and directed me to A&E. New GP will always squeeze children in. They're actually like a GP service used to be. And only about 2 miles down the road from the old one. The difference is, they haven't been purchased by an American conglomerate hell bent on profiteering from the NHS. But it isn't a race to the bottom and the state of the NHS is not okay.

@LuluBlakey1
The NHS could absolutely do what you suggest paying overtime rates to staff to keep facilities running longer, or hire more staff to run them for longer hours without people needing to work OT, but the funds aren't available. It's quite common for people to work their OT privately as it pays more - I so myself and earn twice per hour overtime privately then I would do working OT for the NHS, which if I'm giving up a day off to do I'll take the extra money thank you.

The unnecessary and inappropriate reasons that you're using A&E are part of the problem as to why wait times are so long - along with many other factors of course. Use your GP when you can as opposed to A&E simply because it's out of hours which fits in other your working hours. That's an awful abuse of NHS resources.

I've only ever went to A&E once with my little girl, who is 2, for suspected meningitis and was seen immediately.

It is outrageous OP. I’ve had to go to A&E on quite a few occasions with my DC (always told by GP or 111 to go) and it has always filled me with dread. That feeling that once you’re there there, you know you won’t get out again for an eternity!

It shouldn’t be like that and I’m sure it puts people off going rather for stuff that needs seeing to rather than encourages people to waste all that time for inappropriate visits.

Last time we went was last summer (2022) with youngest DC who was subsequently diagnosed with a serious health condition and admitted. It took 5 hours for him to be given vital medication he needed urgently (insulin as blood sugars were 39.1 on arrival) and 8 hours to be admitted, when we got to the 6 bed ward it was totally empty, next ward had only one bed being used, so no idea why we had to wait in A&E for so long! That was after a 2 hour wait in the ‘urgent care’ department as well.

Waiting times there are just as long as A&E.

23 years ago it was the same with a seriously ill DC when we had to wait 3 hours with her passed out on my lap from stomach pain which transpired to be appendicitis. I had to start shouting at that point, nurse told me off then as soon as DD been examined, it was panic stations.

Many other European countries do not have the same waiting times. In fact just looked up France and Germany and their A&E wait times are less than an hour. I once had to go to A&E in DH’s home country which was recently in a war, massive poverty, tiny country, in the summer when it was full of people going back to visit. I was literally taken straight into a room and treated within 10 minutes. Free of charge as well as emergency.

Why the hell we accept this shambles and are expected to believe we’re lucky to have it, is beyond me.

Good suggestion. But they clearly aren't available. What sort of training does it take to be a phlebotomist (out of interest)?