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 don’t think for one moment that staff are on a deliberate go slow, but for whatever reason A & E ( and other parts of the NHS) isn’t working.
Part of the problem is that no one seems to be allowed to criticise the wholly unacceptable waiting times without being accused of being ungrateful to the staff.
It is not acceptable to have no doctors, or less than is required to operate a reasonable level of service.
We should not be explaining why someone has to wait in pain for 12 hours or more on an uncomfortable chair in a waiting room.
My friend recently went to the hospital in our closest town, which serves a mixed rural and urban area, and used to be fairly quiet and efficient. She is disabled and waited 12 hours in a chair and then another 12 on a trolley waiting to be admitted. The only food or drink she had was provided by people who stayed with/ came back to see her.
There should be riots in the street about this.
I don’t know the answer about how to fix things, but it’s wrong to say it doesn’t need fixing.
I am not rich by any means, but I would willingly pay a tax surcharge to help make the service one fit for human beings living in a first world country.

Do you seriously think the staff are just sitting around doing nothing for a laugh?

Do you think that they wait until the waiting room is full and then enjoy the stress of trying to see everyone all at one time and the associated abuse and stress that comes with it?

Just because you can’t see them rushing past you constantly, doesn’t mean they’re not busy.

Be thankful that you actually are able to get a seat and that’s mainly due to the staff working their arses off and seeing people as quickly as they can.

I’d love to have your job, as it’s obviously one that you can sit around doing nothing for hours.

That's your response to that post?! There was no indication the poster hates patients, just that it was a challenging shift (not at all "go slow" as per the OP).

If everyone working in A&E left who was barely hanging on, having awful, over-stretched shifts and coming home exhausted - THERE WOULD BE NO ONE LEFT. I'm not sure how this message isn't getting through.

This myth rubs me right up - this institution is a money pit and has NEVER been so well funded as it is today and productivity is in decline.

One might argue its strikes, but the overall NHS performance is what’s going to cause privatisation, not lack of funding.

do I love the Tories? Hell no, but are they pumping OUR money in like there’s no tomorrow throwing good after bad? Absolutely.

not a reflection of the frontline team, privatised or not, it’ll be the same doctors and nurses.

Just my thoughts:

To see people on this thread suggesting staff are essentially being lazy and that being the reason for the wait makes me want to explode.
It's literally making me want to throw the towel in. This thread is the single most demoralising thing I've read in a really long time.

Re the stats posted at the beginning of the thread.
I can tell you now, I've worked in the nhs, on the same unit, for my entire career. I've never had to look after the amount of women I do now in one shift and we've never functioned with so little staff. In the late 90's the acceptable numbers were 4 women and 4 babies for one midwife, 8 patients on one shift. Of a night the ward would be staffed with 4 midwives, 1/2 student midwives, 2 HCA's and a ward clerk.

On my night shift this week in 2024 I 'cared' and I use this term loosely, for 13 women and 14 babies (27 in total). The ward was staffed by me, 1 other midwife, and one poor student. I didn't stop all night, I didn't get a break, obviously, my post section women didnt get pain relief, it was an absolute joke and is now the norm. I leave work and cry in my car. It's hell. And even worse for the women. It breaks my heart.

My sister is and ED sister in another trust. She has the same stories, she never stops, there's no staff, there's no doctors to escalate things to, they don't come when you bleep, there's not enough of them. There's no beds, patient flow isn't achieved and they're constantly bed blocked.

I hope your child gets the care they need and feels better very soon.

You won't know if there are emergency admissions

This ^^

I was recently sent to A&E with symptoms of sepsis and a letter from my dr as to the urgency.

it was a packed waiting room, I was the third person seen and put straight into a bed on a drip of antibiotics.

I was very ill and looking back now fully recovered, very impressed with the response / treatment from start to finish.

Bravo NHS 👏

Also, I think (in general) private hospitals have some urgent care centres, but no A&Es really. Mainly because A&Es are complex to run and expensive and private hospitals look to make a profit. There may be one or two exceptions to the rule, but often NHS hospitals take the private patients who develop into emergency situations during private care.

It’s also not really an option for some people.

The real option is for the government to fund the NHS properly and support the people who work in it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t immediately help the OP.

Erm, kind of. That’s what this thread is about isn’t it? Waiting times too long, taking up time and resources. This person should have used their GP, it they’d had breast pain for six months, not A&E….

OP is your child any better yet? Or been seen? I disagree with your thinking that the docs are on slow, but understand you are frustrated and want your kid to feel better.

Those people saying the NHS doesn’t need more funding because it is inefficient and should offer a proper 24/7 service with same amount of staff on at night and weekends - well what can I say?
Of course it would be fantastic to be able to discharge frail and vulnerable patients on a Friday knowing that there were GP s working sat and Sunday plus community physios, occupational therapists, district nurses, social workers, etc. If this were to work we would need more nurses, doctors, radiographers, physios, OTs, biomedical scientists, and admin staff to cover 7 days.
Then we would need nursery’s to be open at the weekends.
Yes and we haven’t got enough to staff 5 days a week.
Oh and all NHS staff to probably only have one full weekend off in a month. This is just to cover the 7 days and not the nights.
How would all of the posters who work Mon-Fri like to also work weekends.
As a nurse with 39 years experience all I want to do is my job. The public perception that it is the nhs and its staff that are inefficient makes me want to cry.

I'm assuming that OP the others in the waiting room have been seen by the A&E docs?

In which case, the lack of medical emergencies coming into the department is irrelevant to their wait time as they will be waiting to see speciality doctors. Likely General Surgery in OPs case.

You have absolutely zero idea of what else is going on in the hospital, and overnight there is an even more limited number of doctors available, covering a much larger patient list than usual.

Just ignore those saying the staff are lazy - very few people actually feel that way, the frontline team are 9/10 amazing.

most people conflate the NHS the ‘business’ with the person they see for treatment. There’s lots of issues with the NHS but I don’t see most people arguing it’s the frontline work ethic.

“we have the right to ask what exactly is going [on] You don't know that, too.”

Are you serious?!

you have the audacity to presume you know where I work, and therefore I “don’t know” about the NHS?

I won’t even dignify this with a response.

as for “we have the right”…

Of course we all have the right.

but we don’t all have the right to make random shit up such as “I never see any doctors” ,

just because you sat in the public area of A&E and didn’t see any of the people who are busy in the back dealing with road traffic accidents or heart attacks.

i am sorry for being spiky but don’t presume you know where i work.

That's so very sad.

We shouldn’t be grateful for dangerous and inefficient healthcare so I don’t see how telling someone to shut the fuck up and don’t ever utter a bad word about the sinking ship golden egg that is the NHS is helpful. Attitudes truly are stinking

OP, it isn’t the staff doing nothing. They are always doing something. I hope your daughter has been seen and is on the way to getting better

It is very difficult, and worse these days. I have worked in EDs, including being shipped off from my ward on NEW YEAR EVE. You're waiting for a Dr to discharge a patient.. they are stuck in the ED. Since Covid and the drs strikes,it's got really bad. For the past 2 years I couldn't get a GP appointment,if I was lucky a nurse phone appointment 5 weeks down the line. Then you take yourself off to hospital. I have been in this situation a couple of months ago,there were whole families there, taking up all the chairs. My DH was taken in by ambulance, central chest pain,ECG changes, Friday night, not even a chair available. Drunks and folk handcuffed to police, laying across them
NHS doesn't need money thrown at it that doesn't/didn't work. It needs a total revamp. I have always maintained jokingly,after over 40 years nursing I could run the NHS single handed!

It is awful, having to wait when you are experiencing a genuine medical emergency. But last time I was in A&E, with my sister who was brought in by ambulance after a suspected stroke that ended up being an aneurysm, everyone I spoke to in there was there for a non emergency - spoke to someone with a rash, someone eating a McDonalds who said he'd had 'a bit of chest pain earlier, get it every now and again', someone with a child who was coughing 'a bit worse'. Surely there needs to be somewhere else for the people who really just need to see a gp but can't get an appointment.

I have been in A&E a couple of times fairly recently, two different hospitals. It was bearable, took its time but had tests done etc in the meantime then had a wait of a couple of hours. BUT it was in the daytime

Um. Not locally. I was waiting for minor burn to be desurfaced and dressed last year. After four hours I was assessed by a sleep deprived junior doctor in an empty 15 bed ward. Lots of beds, no staff. I was then treated in the nurses office, full of staff and random equipment, in what was supposed to be a sterile environment. I declined and went home.

Truth is no-one wants to work nights or weekends. The NHS is not a seven day 24 hour service.

Totally appreciate this. And a good majority of the children I see fall into this category. Mostly I have no issue with this, always tell the parents they did the right thing to bring them in, even if the child is jumping on and off the scales now.

But in this case, one fever spike of 38 over 12 hours ago, followed by a child who is essentially well other than a runny nose (drinking well, active and playing, passing urine). The only current complaint is the child was not eating- to which I pointed out that he was. The response was 'yes but he's only eating sweets'. Might he need antibiotics?

I'd say a lack of public education on how to deal with mildly virally children costs the NHS a lot and contributes to A&E waiting times.

When I had an accident and taken into A&E via ambulance I never saw the reception desk. I was taken into a cubicle through another door, triaged and given pain killers. I then had a long wait for CT scan and x-rays but I was kept in a cubicle as I couldn’t sit up. I spent about 12 hours in A&E before I was put in a cast and deemed safe to be discharged home with nursing support arranged for the following week so I didn’t have to be admitted. No-one sitting in reception would have had any idea that was going on.

How many patients are in the waiting area is irrelevant. You have no idea how many people with major traumas / critical illnesses have been taken straight to resus and bypassed the waiting area.

Nowadays A&E depts have multiple different zones or sections - gone are the days of resus and everything else. Ours has 5 different areas that I'm aware of. They also have their own ambulance entrances.

You won't be seeing the full picture, OP. NHS staff won't be sitting around doing nothing whilst you are waiting, but I know it can feel that way when you are worried about a loved one.

How about looking at it this way, the NHS will never function "properly", because everybody expects it to be like private health care.

Imagine if it didn't exist, you break your leg, now your only choice is the PAY a doctor to fix it. How much would it be worth to you?

What would you pay to avoid a life of disability and pain, or even possibly premature death because of infection?

£10k?

£30k?

Yes, the NHS may be slow, you may have to wait six hours in A&E, but they will treat you for free, set your broken bones and put your leg in an inflatable boot, you avoid a lifetime if crippling pain in exchange for a six hour wait.

That's a fantastic deal TBH.

One of the issues in A&E is there are often no beds to move people to so there are usually people having to be nursed on trolleys. This no space or staff to see you. Bed number were deliberately reduced some years ago because care was meant to transfer to the community/ nursing home etc. that transfer didn’t happen as predicted and the population exploded so now there’s not enough beds. Or staff, especially senior staff