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

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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!

Yep! Some families are just shocking and treat a trip to A&E like a day out. Security should be showing them the door.

It’s not just run down services.
There’s a lot of aggressive people and no respect for healthcare professionals.
The entitlement in the uk is awful.
It’s 24 years since I took dd to A&E and the service was good and swift. However there was still an entitled person shouting and being abusive. Dd was terrified.
We now have even more people like this.

Did they actually check in at reception though? And get put in the queue to be seen?
Or did they just come in and charge their phones? Because if they just charged their phones then they weren’t contributing to A&E wait times or putting anyone else in danger of not being seen. Ditto the homeless people sleeping. That has no affect on wait time.

Neighbours, wife took husband in because he couldn't form words, was dragging his right leg. 32 hours they waited before he was seen by a consultant and admitted. Yes it was a stroke but the window of opportunity had passed so he can't be helped now. North Wales. Three hours here would be a bloody miracle. It's the worst hospital in Wales it's just been admitted.

I was in A&E a few weeks ago with concussion and a very drunk/drugged up man went into the toilet. Was in there a while (I only noticed as I needed to go too and there were only two toilets in the waiting room, both occupied). Eventually the door opened and out came... a large, solid, stinking turd that said man decided to hurl into the middle of the waiting room, before staggering out after it.

Delightful. The poor staff having to clean that up!

Tbh I took my DS in and was in and out in just over an hour - inc ECG.

on the other hand I’ve sat in A&E in Birmingham for 12 hours without being seen. Usually surrounded by entire families (all adults) bringing in some very stinky food, just what you don’t need, on the phone usually FaceTime to other family members who are missing out..agree every adult should be limited to one adult family member!

I actually wished I hadn’t posted now to anyone thinking of replying. My mum recently died in Colchester Casually department and the care she received there was disgraceful. I won’t go into detail for her own dignity but you wouldn’t have treated animals like she was. It’s not the patients fault these places are disgusting, the staff couldn’t look us in the eye.

The patients attending A&E unecessarily are a minority, a tiny minority. The overwhelming majority do need to be seen. The problems with A&E up and down the country are not caused by this tiny minority. Its caused by bed shortages.This directly affects the wait times. Ambulatory patients, or those who walk in, often dont need to be admitted. They can be seen treated and leave. however, to do this, A&E staff require cubicles for examination and treatments. What is happening, because other areas for patients waiting for ward beds are full, these cubicles are taken over by these patients too. So fewer ambulatory patients can be seen at the same time, making wait times longer. These bed shortages are in most cases, due to social care issues, and beds being taken up by eledrly patients that used to go to cottage nurse-led hospitals, no well enough to go home, but not so unwell they require medics on site, these hospitals are all but closed down. A handful are left. The aging population, the reduction in the number of nurse led care beds, over full social care and care homes is the reason for A&E delays, not a handful of people visiting for minor reasons.

Side note - Patients arent all seen in time order, different trusts use different systems, but the triage score determines when you will be seen. Most ambulatory will score low, but the ones that come in and score higher immediately jump to next to be seen by a Dr. Its also not just Drs that see patient, advanced clinical practioners will see patients too, but they cant see all patients, so go to the next appropriate patient that they can see on the waiting lists. I know most people know this, but sometimes it feels very unfair and that people are not seen appropriately. I myself was in recently, triaged and had bloods, my bloods were derranged and i was moved up a triage band when the labs called up with the results. To the patients waiting, i presented ok, i was sat drinking a coffee on my phone, but that blood result was escalated and treated quickly due to the nature of it.

We had a nurse knifed by a patient recently. And the obnoxious verbal abuse is frightening.

Depending on where in the uk you live and what reason you’re in for it’s entirely possible to be in and out in 3 hours! I had an unpredictable emergency last week where I was referred to hospital and I was back home in bed after just under 3 hours. I’m not in London or a major city though and my reason for being in was something that needed immediate tests. I’ve had the same experience previously when being referred with my young baby too but our paediatrics dept is great!

Obviously the non-emergencies were waiting much longer and I’m not in London or a major city.

I was in Ipswich A&E at the beginning of September for a badly twisted knee. Nurse was walking up and down the line of people waiting to be booked in by reception. Anyone with a suspected break or sprain was given a card to go to Urgent Care for x-rays after being booked in. I was assessed, x-rayed, treated and out the door in under 3 hours. Was amazed as A&E was very very busy. Seemed a hugely efficient way of doing things!

Read my other posts you won’t convince me otherwise. These places are where you go to die.

Where I worked we had frequent fliers under light therapy, 2 or 3 hours of that and they would miraculously recover and walk out only to be back the following week to do the same thing. It took time and a trolley dealing with these people who had nothing wrong with them physically but wanted the attention. Taking sad face selfies on the trollies was popular too. Bloody time wasters.😡
So annoying for the real cases in pain and scared having their wait extended for hours.

It has an effect on other things tbf. Like people with a legitimate need to be there getting a seat, or being able to charge their phone. Both quite important things if you are there because of an accident or in an emergency.

My local a&E is fine. I've only ever once had to wait more then 3hrs. 1-2 hours is the norm.

But I've always been able to get a GP appointment when needed. We also have an out of hours GP service that's walk in and open until 10pm. It works really well.

Not everywhere is terrible.

When I worked in A&E, many moons ago, patients weren’t allowed to eat in case they needed surgery.

Last time I went to A&E - sometime in 2022 - I waited about 6 or 8 hours. I had to complain about how I was treated by both the triage nurse and the doctor. (And the complaint was taken seriously and I got a full apology.)

Although I know what you mean about some of the patients. 4 of them in the waiting room had a police escort. It was also rather distressing in other ways - one person kept on vomiting and an old lady has a seizure and fell out of her wheelchair.

My A & E is pretty good where I live, as is urgent treatment, have been a patient and carer attending on several ocassions in the past 6 months, maybe I've been lucky but it generally has good ratings and feed back.

3 hour wait? Lucky you.
Here in Wales my 84 yr old Dad has had to wait 24 hours. Some of those stood or sat on the floor as no seats

Having one good experience (for you) doesn’t mean the NHS isn’t done!
And the people you listed may well have had very good reasons for doing all of the things they were doing.
Why couldn’t the homeless people be poorly as well? Perhaps they weren’t only there to sleep!

If the NHS wasn’t on its knees, that family wouldn’t have been needing to eat curry in the waiting room because they would have already been seen!

But she didn't say that they shouldn't be seen. She didn't even imply it. She was talking about the behaviour of people.

Not true! At least not where I work anyway.

I actually ended up in A&E in France years ago and it was very clean, very calm, very quiet - like a proper medical setting.
I can not have imagined people eating a curry or having a row on their phones! It would have seemed very out of place...

Different A&Es up and down the country will have different wait times. When I took my other for a fracture, she was in, triaged, x rayed, fitted with a boot and was out in 3.5 hours.

Had to go to A&E during lockdown. I know there were fewer accidents and calls on their time as many people were at home, but even so, it was eye opening to see what A&E could look like if the rest of the care system could be fixed. I was in and out in 45 mins for a fracture, including XRay and setting/bandaging.