It's not A&E that's the problem - it's people!!!

[eqpi4t2hbsnktd]

Was in A&E last night. Busy east London Hospital...
3 hours in and out. Staff amazing. Tests done etc... Facilities (not pretty) but fine. Had a seat. Seen in privacy and treated with respect and care...

However the people waiting were awful.. one woman kept coming in a racially abusing the reception staff... security kept taking her out. Stopping the staff from getting on with their jobs.

Entire family (6 of them) eating a curry and having very loud family time up the back of the waiting room - so loud that the Dr.s calling people's names were not being heard... causing delay.

2 homeless people sleeping across multiple chairs (not begrudging them a warm spot to sleep.. but they should not have to be there.)

2 woman came in just to charge their phones up!

It's not the NHS that is on its knees it's society. And A&E is the harsh reflection of society!

Interested to know why not IVF.
Would you elaborate?

Because it is expensive without guaranteed results, and also I feel we should be using resources on those already here and in need of treatment rather than creating more babies. Just my personal opinion and I know many will disagree.

I've read more of your posts and I understand what you're saying about saving people over creating new lives

It's a shit choice to have to make to be honest. I suffer from PCOS so IVF may well have been something I needed myself but we'd have found the funds somehow. Strongly believe the resources we do have should go on those already here and that are actually sick, although in an ideal world prevention would be funded too.

Did she go straight to A&E or ring 111?

Because I have rung 111 for advice/to get an OOH GP or dentist appointment and been sent to A&E. And because of how systems are connected felt I had to go so that be HV/school don’t get a note that it was advised that we take DS to hospital and didn’t turn up, even though it felt unnecessary.

I think I agree with you

they prioritise more urgent situations. you wouldn't be urgent for a splinter.

The NHS would have ceased to exist all together if it wasn't for the immigrants that work in it! And they are getting sick of racist attitudes like yours! My dh came here 30 years ago as a junior Dr to work for the NHS, he's saying now that people like you make him feel unwelcome and perhaps he should leave. I hope you keep your nasty views to yourself at work.

I can only assume two things from your post. Firstly that you work in an area with a diverse population and secondly that your knowledge of life in the UK is very narrow and limited. If you are working in a professional role in the NHS your point of view is reprehensible.

There may be some hospitals with a diverse demographic but that is not the case for the majority. I could sit in my local hospital for quite a few days before I saw anything other than a white face. My mother could sit in hers for possibly a week or two. When mother needed surgery last year (complex) she had to go to a London teaching hospital. It was very diverse from a staff and patient perspective but the care from every level was incomparable to what we experienced at our local hospitals. That care was provided by people of black, East and South Asian heritage. The anaesthetist was German.

Parts of this country have a high level of diversity. Most of it does not and people from the former are finding themselves increasingly uncomfortable in the latter. May I suggest, gently, that you reflect on what happened in Nazi Germany and started up 100 years ago. Auschwitz liberation anniversary was yesterday.

For the record, I am of immigrant stock. My maternal grandmother's family came as refugees from Ireland, my grandfather arrived her with his family from Russia aged 8, following 1917, my father from Germany in 1938.

Immigrants on the whole are providing the backbone of the hard and dirty work in this country and many have an excellent work ethic. Since 1999 all my cleaners have been immigrants. The indigent population is the bit that won't work in my experience.

You can only get this in some trusts.

In ours you can't and so are sent to wait in a&e.

Both DS and I have chronic conditions often requiring minor adjustments to meds or tubes, or for urgent bloods (which with the waiting timws would be actually quicker to get done by the GP). But we have no ward access, 24+ hours in a&e is a regular occurance.

In a&e here drunks and drug addicts are a huge problem, putting massive pressure on staff. All street drunks are lifted from town and brought to a&e to sober up, they fight with staff and constantly rush into treatment areas and drink the hand sanitiser, thus requiring treatment.

Drug addicts use a&e to sell and take drugs, its well known and has been published in the local news. They also end up overdosed and require treatment. And again rush into clinical areas en masse looking to steal meds. The security and police seem to be useless and know them by name, joking with them rather than sorting the issue.

It's scary to witness, I usually go to a&e alone as I'm usually 'well' and have been sent for a stupid reason that should be sorted in a clinic. But for sick and vulnerable people it's a disgrace.

Also here you can easily wait over 1 hour to be triaged, no matter what is wrong with you. Then every hour for the rest of your wait until you see a dr a nurse will come to the waiting room and take obs to ensure no one has died/deteriorated waiting to see a dr.

How embarrassing that you've been so openly racist here. I feel saddened that you work for the NHS, a service in which many healthcare professionals are 'bloody immigrants'.

I think the drunk and the drug users are more of a problem.

Having also worked in the NHS for years, and know the data on A&E use, it is NOT because of the "bloody immigrants". It's because of those turning up when it is very unnecessary and then kicking up a fuss so it takes nurses / doctors twice as long to deal with them. It's because of years and years of underfunding both of their service and wider health care services. It's because of the lack of support for primary care which is desperately needed. Because of the lack of forethought around training GP's.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

Was your condition urgent?

Did you try to get a GP appointment?

And how embarrassing how judgemental you are

My job involves reading peoples medical records and the amount of records I read that say "left before treatment" (when they'd only been waiting about 1.5 hours)...what was the point of them coming to A and E then? Absolute wasted time for all concerned. So many health issues don't need to go through A and E.

Another fault is the 111 service. In my experience, they have always told me to go to A&E when I know that's not necessarily. I think they are fearful of saying otherwise and need to cover their backs.
Maybe others have a different experience to me but that's been mine.
I'm not sure what use they really are.
Happy to be told otherwise

@Oblomov25

You have hit the nail on the head

It absolutely is down to individuals making mistakes. Minor mistakes maybe. But the knock effect is huge to individual patients and to the NHS as a whole.
It wouldn't be tolerated in any other organisation so why is it when people's lives are at stake.

No same experience a&e or an ambulance everytime. I obviously turn down the ambulances.

Thanks for the laugh! MN, where someone can be openly and horribly racist and that's ok and not questioned, but you say you think drug users and drunks are a problem in A&E and you're called judgemental.

Yup, I do judge them. Fuck off out of A&E.

Addiction is an illness your not above it all it takes is an injury when you end up on painkillers that gets out of hand. A mental breakdown that you try to handle with alcohol because waiting times for therapy are 2 years long. Maybe think a little bit of why people sometimes end up in these situations

The NHS is...

Underfunded

Inefficient

Staffed by managers who aren't necessarily trained to make

Used unnecessarily by many people

Struggling around the interface with social case

Struggling to keep up with people's increased expectations/new treatments

At the whim of people's sense of entitlement generally

Struggling to shake off the idea that hospitals are the holy grail of treatment

Staffed by too-high a proportion of part-time staff who cost the same as a full time person to train/manage

Resistant to actually deal with problems relating to underperformance of employees

So huge and busy that most people have absolutely no idea about the sheer number of episodes of care that takes place and the true cost of providing these

... given all of the above it's a miracle such amazing things happen there!

What an absolutely shameful thing to say

How was she wasting time, have you ever had a cyst? I have had many cysts including Bartholins cysts. The first time I was in agony, I thought I had thrush for a few days then fainted and in a lot of pain, it turned out the cysts was infected and according to the dr the size of an apple. I was lucky I wasnt in the uk so saw a dr straight away and it was drained and put on antibiotics. That was the start of years of hell and eventually an operation.

The walk in centre if you can’t see a gp is absolutely the right thing to do. How the hell is @PinkSparklyPussyCat to know her symptoms aren’t serious, she’s not the medical professional and if one tells you to go to a&e you trust they know what they are talking about.

If you live abroad, it is really ridiculous to claim you know more about the NHS than people who actually deal with the NHS. I suspect the reason visits take a long time where you are is precisely because it's private medicine - it's notorious that, particularly when insurance companies are paying, hospitals order every test under the sun irrespective of whether they are necessary or not.