To think this is a fucking joke - A@E wait?

[CanNeverThinkOfAName]

So our local hospital serves 350,000 residents from a large area.

Arrived at A&E at 11pm. Expected it to be packed and to have a long wait. There were around 15 patients waiting. At 3am there were 4 still in the waiting area plus us.

From that time only one person has been called to see a doctor and at least 10 people have gone out after being seen.

Ambulance staff check patients in near where we are sitting and only 3 have checked in since we got here.

Obviously not a busy night.

AIBU to think this is totally piss take and the staff must be on a bloody go slow or something?

I think you have moved completely from the original story..bickering will get us no where..NHS is a mess, the goverment are greedy i guess they go private, so what would they know anyway..they dont care obviously..i give up !

But, it is still taxpayer money that would be better spent for the betterment of the general public and not just a minority of people. What else has money been wasted, as it does add up.

@SpicyMoth the tax payers' alliance is one of the tufton st mob that hate the NHS and are trying to get it privatised. Cut from the same cloth as the IEA and all the other reasonably named things that are straight out of Orwell's 1984 style of naming gov institutes that mean the opposite of what they are. Daily Mail probably hates the NHS too.

I've had nothing but good treatment except when my GP retired and hadn't sent a referral off for a MH diagnoses which has put me about a year behind where I should be in the queue for this particular one and is currently oversubscribed due to more awareness.

Other than that I have had excellent care and treatment when needed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TaxPayers%27_Alliance Wow, the TPA look shady AF. I still think the pronoun badges, if they existed, I never saw one , are a waste of money and a bit distasteful, but I’m shocked at the so-called taxpayers alliance.

Err No one apart from the Govt thinks throwing money at the NHS is a solution.... look at the extra billions they throw at easing winter pressures every Sept? none of which makes the slightest difference.

How about long term investment/planning?

Extra funds need to be targeted, priority given to retention of staff, equipment and buildings.

Personal experience, whilst important doesn't trump carefully considered research.

My elderly parents contribute to my family in multiple ways. Throughout their older years they've provided care for my children and have also supported my brother who has a terminal and progressive disease. In a way they have subsidised us because without their support me and my family would have been financially and emotionally poorer. They have plugged a gap in NHS/social care and I'm particularly appreciative of them when I was bedbound with long covid and unable to get any care. I realise I am lucky to still have them but I don't begrudge them now needing and receiving NHS treatment. Without that care my mum would have died years ago and we would have lost a key member of our family who provided so much. There is a discussion to be had over how we fund social care etc and also about end of life issues but we should also be respectful of the contributions our elderly population make.

@CanNeverThinkOfAName your post has been completely derailed. I have just got my own husband home after a 5 day hospital stay after an emergency a&e dash. Unfortunately not well still but taking a day at a time.

When you're sat hopeless watching a relative in pain sometimes an anonymous outlet to vent helps, I understand your reasons for posting. I hope your daughter is doing well and you are both home and resting.

Also those that are hellbent on making this thread political and those that want to say how great they are for doing a job they decided to sign up and train to do, I say this as someone that's been there, move on and start their own thread.

I don't suppose there is anything they spend money on that benefits everyone. There are always arguments about what the NHS should spend money on and what it shouldn't, should smokers/drinkers/people with sports injuries be treated, should treatment for infertility be provided, should contraception be provided.

You would be pushed to get agreement on how the money is spent and all those things will have more money spent on them than £500k.

Do you want us to bow as well. We can actually widen the discussion if we want to, not your decision and not you place to issue orders.

I hope your husband is doing OK.

Sorry I don't understand? What does do you want us to bow as well mean?

I don't think it's fair that the OP is going through something that is obviously horrible for her and her thread has turned so drastically into something different.

No my husband isn't ok.

“Those that want to say how great they are for doing a job they decided to sign up and train to do”

I think that’s the general consensus of NHS threads anyway. If there’s even a speck of criticism towards DNHS or DNurses then it’s accusations of wanting to have an American healthcare system and being a Tory 🤦🏿‍♀️

It’s crap but I don’t think it’s the staff being slow. Likely not enough staff and/or resources for what they’re trying to do.

on the NHS quicker app, my local A&E says 38 patients waiting and a wait time of 12h 45m.

Our recent A&E experience has been abysmal. DH blue lighted with suspected stroke symptoms. Had CT scan straight away then returned to ambulance where we sat for 3hrs. He was then taken to “fit to sit” area where he sat in a bog standard waiting room chair for over 24hrs (some people had been there over 48hrs) these were people who would normally have been in bed as they were all receiving treatment. A poor woman came in with a sobbing teenager in complete pain, they were also there the next day when I went back in to sit with DH.

He then got upgraded to a corridor bed, thankfully there only an hour before they found a ward place. He’s moved wards twice and still not had a formal diagnosis a week on from arriving (stroke ruled out fairly early, but symptoms still present) as neurology are too busy to see him.

Never experienced anything like it. Complete contrast to planned discectomy I had 2 weeks ago which was like private care in comparison. (This post is very outing but I have nothing to hide on here 😆)

Should have read further into the thread my post is out of kilter with recent discussion, but at least another example of how dire the situation has become.

Needs a whole system analysis, wider than NHS. I stood by the reception area for a bit and a teenager came in and calmly announced that she’d taken a paracetamol overdose, she had an overnight bag with her and no physical signs of distress. A cry for mental health support or somewhere to stop for the night? Either she probably needed help from wider services but couldn’t get it.

I don’t know what the answer is though. Policy making and solving societal problems is super tough. I work in a government body trying to fix quite well defined problems with constantly declining resources and that’s hard enough.

There are so many things that some feel that the NHS should not spend money on, personally I feel that sports injuries should be covered by insurance either individually or through sports clubs.

Infertility is tough but when the success rate is so low I do wonder if the NHS should be paying for it. I speak as one whose daughter is infertile because the NHS didn't deal properly with a pelvic infection, she was offered IVF but wisely chose not to have it as she was told it was very unlikely to be successful.

People may choose to regard alcoholism as an illness but can you regard smoking the same? Of course we wouldn't NOT treat lung cancer but is it fair that we should be expected to pay for it?
Contraception is somewhat different, a teenage pregnancy can blight lives, and an abortion can be devastating. Also contraception isn't that expensive.

Another thread where the OP disappears…..🙄

@Angelsrose There is a huge push to get people active, you could argue that fitter people in general, don't place as much strain on the NHS as the unfit/overweight, who most definitely do.

People pay taxes, either directly or on cigarettes' & alcohol, so have contributed to their subsequent health needs.

Where more could be done is in recovering costs from insurers from the liable party in road traffic accidents.

To all of you whining about the NHS, sod off and go private!!!!

I thought while you were handing out your orders you might like some sign of subservience from us.

Well I think you prove my point, we all have our own ideas of what should be treated. Personally I don't see why an adult can't pay for their own contraception but if they can't I don't see why infertility shouldn't be treated. Why should one issue with our fertility be a priority and another not?

I have no idea what the budget for contraception is but I bet it isn't cheap on a population basis.

Oh sorry, the lack of a question mark made it difficult for me to understand. That's not me being pedantic by the way, I mean that genuinely!
I couldn't understand why your knickers were so twisted but re-reading my post I realised as I had added extra into it and missed some wording out. Therefore, it read like I was telling other posters to start another thread, I apologise I actually meant to say that was my opinion not to tell other posters to do that.

Again apologies for that, other than that though your rely to me made you come across as a bit of a dick, again in my opinion. Have a good day 😊

@Iwasafool sorry, reply not rely. I don't think I can edit on my phone. I'm pretty sure you'll tell me if I'm wrong though.

I can see that but I don’t understand why nhs workers are not demanding that the service is better managed, given how much waste there is.
Do you think hard working tax payers have bottomless pockets?

I was merely stating a fact, we can widen the discussion if we want to not sure why that makes me a dick. Maybe you're the dick for writing a post telling us what to do when you didn't mean to tell us what to do.

I suppose there is only so much that good management can achieve if you don't have enough money/staff/equipment and without enough money you can't get more staff and equipment.