To think the current A&E wait times are mad

[Iamunsure]

I live in west Midlands and the current wait times in our area's A&E is currently 9 hours to be seen for general and 6-7 hours for children A&E. We took our DC to A&E as asked by 111 triage. It's absolutely mad with people sitting on floor for hours to be seen.
How are the waiting times in your area and how's your experience been. I think it's absolutely mad and gone massively downhill for NHS.

Children seem to be treated quickly, as with doctors appointments. I've never had a problem getting my DC to see one one in a short space of time, guess it's the priority the system. Should be the same for older people. Xx

How can Sweden have such a good system ?
What does it do differently (to the UK and Ireland ) that gives it a so much better service

The whole system is broken and people are undoubtedly ending up in a&e as they don't know where else to turn.

When DD recently got a piece of drinking straw stuck up her nose we ended up in a 5 hour wait in a&e. The GP wanted nothing to do with the issue so I phoned 111 to try to establish if there was any minor injuries type of place to take her. There wasn't and all they could advise was to not try to remove it ourselves and wait for hours for a doctor to call back. The thing just needed carefully fishing out so off we traipsed to a&e to wait until midnight for a doctor with a pair of long handled tweezers to spend 30 seconds pulling it out. DD had her observations taken hourly throughout like a poorly patient and we clogged up the waiting room for 5 hours with a completely healthy but increasingly tired and grumpy toddler.

Obviously abusing staff is never acceptable. However you can see why people do it. They are worried, stressed, tired, in pain, they may have pets or children or jobs or elderly relatives to worry about. They then are expected to sit on the floor for 12 hours or more, with limited access to food or water, in dirty conditions, surrounded by suffering or drunk or infectious people. It's hardly surprising that some people lose their patience. It's not really reasonable to expect people to go on understanding and making allowances. The truth is that any wait over 4 hours is too long. People are dying in hospital while waiting, in ambulances, waiting for ambulances, because they avoid calling an ambulance or going to a and e because of the conditions, or because they can't get a GP appointment so their condition worsens. It's completely unacceptable. This is why people kick off. Not the fault of individual staff but it's an unavoidable consequence of the state the NHS is in.

They pay about double what we do

It’s always been like this from my recollection.

I worked in A&E in the 1990’s.

80% of the patients then should not have been there. I presume that is over 90% now.

Many time wasters clog up the system.

I left after being bitten and spat at one too many times.

Not always. Last time I was there (with a fitting 1 year old) we waited 5 hours. Everyone else in the waiting room waited a similar time. It was all children including some who were struggling to breathe, and a girl with a broken ankle.

Trouble is if your child gets tonsillitis on a Friday night you would have to wait until Monday. I guess they probably won't die but they would suffering, need longer off school, a proportion will get sepsis. It's not really a solution. Plus the GP will send you to a and e if they think you need seen and they have no appointments. Once you have been advised to take a child to a and e you have to go or they call social services. This probably explains many of the vomiting toddlers etc .

Just be grateful that you weren't ill enough to be seen extra sharpish!

They spend a lot more on healthcare in other countries, whether via tax or via patient contributions. The NHS is the cheapest healthcare system in the developed world, more or less.

Lots of countries you pay for appointments or a proportion of other costs, generally you would claim some back via insurance which could be through your workplace or the state of unemployed .

In the UK we have much worse poverty and inequality, people living in poor quality housing, people unable to eat decent diets than in other European countries. Poor people take up a disproportionate amount of healthcare. This would make a system where you had to pay tricky as these poor people would have to be exempt from paying (unless you want an inhuman system like in the us). If we took steps to reduce poverty and spent more on preventive care in these people we could save a lot of money overall.

I'm sure there could also be huge efficiency savings for example community nurses could deal with a lot more than they do, better adult social care, better availability of physio and rehab would help people benefit from their expensive operations, not making people wait months until they deteriorate needing more care, having more support for disabled people in the community etc.

@PrincessTeaSet do you have a link to the data to back up your claims?