To think 70% of people shouldn’t be in A&E

[PrettyPleaseXo]

Recently I was admitted in excruciating pain to A&E due to kidney stones. Over the time I was there it got progressively busier as expected and there was corridor care (I was stuck in a corridor without pain relief and crying in pain for two hours) and ambulances backed up out the door.

When I was discharged and went back out through the A&E reception/wait room I couldn’t help but notice
that 80% of the people sat there looked perfectly fine, chatting etc and didn’t appear to be in either an accident or emergency.

AIBU to think that unless you’re seriously unwell, in acute pain or have an injury that needs immediately addressing you should be turned away from A&E and told to go
to the GP instead?

Interesting take.

I had an ambulance call out due to a severe asthma attack a couple of years ago.

I was getting progressively worse, so my partner called an ambulance. I received nebulisers on the ambulance. I was told that the paramedics got there just in time as my stats were very low. I wasn’t able to speak, walk or lift my arms etc.

By the time we had reached the hospital, my condition stabilised and I felt better in myself. I was checked into A&E and I felt guilty just sitting in the waiting room when I felt fine in myself (because obviously I had already received treatment in the ambulance etc.)

If you had saw me waiting in A&E, you’d never know the state I was in before I received that treatment on the ambulance. Maybe people waiting there wondered why I was there too. Who knows?

The paramedics saved my life, but I needed to be seen by a doctor and received the appropriate medication. I had an asthma review the next day and had a repeat prescription for preventative and rescue inhalers etc.

I haven’t read the entire thread yet, but I suspect there were many waiting in A&E with similar stories to me.

Agree but A&E seems to have merged with “out of hours” the last couple of times I’ve needed it. I’m sat in an A&E waiting room waiting for antibiotics. Well aware that I shouldn’t be there but it’s where I’ve been sent by 111 - absolute shambles the whole thing

I walked into A&E, sat in a chair and probably looked normal. Within 10 mi utes i was told they had a bed for me in resus.

My son sometimes needs an ambulance ride for his asthma.

The steroids they use in the ambulance make him act really hyper, so often I am then sat waiting with a child who is acting like he's been necking haribo and has just been told his going to Disney. When in reality he's actually still very ill and needs monitoring.

He's my placid child as well, so it's always quite confusing!

We all know that:

• There was probably a fair chunk of people in A&E that had urgent but not life-threatening ailments that could have been treated elsewhere
• The large majority of those people probably tried to get treated elsewhere and couldn't
• A&E was probably their last choice but they had no other choice

I'm tired of people blaming the patients for going to A&E. If the NHS had sufficient non-emergency services I bet you the A&Es would be half as busy.

What are those people meant to do though? The patients are not the problem.

I am really sorry that happened to your poor son. It is so important to listen to everyone on the team.

If you call 111, they will organise a GP appointment at a clinic in your town and if all the slots are full they send youvto A&E. Also, most of us aren't medically trained. It's hard to know what is and isn't an emergency. I had a quinsy on my tonsils once. I didn't realise, just thought it was a sore throat. I went to the pharmacist and he sold me day and night nurse. But I should have been in A& E. You would not have thought I was ill either.

Six weeks ago I suffered a knee injury and couldn't walk.
In the waiting room I was able to chat and joke with my son, but I still couldn't walk. Ended up first in a wheelchair, then crutches for two weeks, then a stick for four weeks.
Obviously if someone in agony and danger of dying was there, Id expect them to be seen first, but should I have not been there because I could chat and joke?

My dd spent most of her latter teens in hospital with countless admissions for Anorexia and suicide attempts. Given the clothes she hid it with you’d have never guessed at times. I think patients need to focus on themselves.

You're not a doctor, so YABU. Unless you have X-Ray vision?

Maybe they were family and friends waiting to hear about a loved one?

Someone can have cancer and look perfectly fine.

Yes, there are timewasters aplenty, but they will be dealt with accordingly by the professionals.

I was in A and E for the second time the week before last, before being admitted into hospital and you're right! All the "I fell last week and I think I've knocked my elbow, it hurts" and 'I slept funny the night before last and now my neck hurts" type people are clogging up the system.
But as someone said in the beginning, when you can't get into your doctors or they don't have the right equipment, what are people supposed to do? I was actually sent straight down to A and E by my GP, who I was actually, for once, lucky to get an appointment with. But I'm never usually that lucky. It sounds like all GP surgeries have gone downhill these days.

Last yeat I was in a&e over the course of three days. It was when the euros were on. Before kick off for an England match a&e cleared. You cant be that ill if you can put it off to watch the footy!

During the junior doctors strike an A&E I cannot name had senior doctors doing this.

Figures showed a massive increase in efficiency. Shorter waits, less patients through the hospital in total.

Once the juniors came back the seniors refused to continue.

Agree with this, figures show the busiest times for A&E and urgent treatment centres (excluding weekend evenings) are;

Monday mornings after 9 (can’t get GP appt)
Most weekdays after 3 (schools out)
Friday morning after 9 (can’t get GP appt, don’t want to wait the weekend)

It’s impossible for the chronically ill too!

There's always one that takes offence and makes a sarky comment.

Some people just take the mick and shouldn't be there. Just a bunch of hypochondriacs looking for attention.

Simples.

Where do you live? Happytown?

My lical A and E is kniwn at The Pit.
Espeecialy at nught tume

That is it not a refelction on the staff or the facilities. But the over crowding and some of the people who attend it.

Yes, some people will go to A and E fir a broken finger nail or bruised little toe.

But some people, especially older people living alone, do need urgent serious treatment.

Figures show that nearly half of people who attend A and E are Alcoholics or have substance abuse problems

Not to mention vulnerable people with Mental Health Problems.

Surely A and E us not the place for any of above people

Lastly, we also have all of the illegal chancers and tourists whi get free treatement and should be charged top rate. Or better still. Re route them to private facilities like Spire, Bupa Hospitals etc where they have to pay up big time

You can't tell by looking if someone needs to be in A&E. My DD had a seizure where she hit her head. Ambulance was called and decided no A&E. Two hours later she had another seizure and was sick.111 said go to hospital. We were there for nearly 13 hours. You probably wouldn't have thought she needed to be there but she needed a head scan and to be observed. I don't think I saw anyone there who didn't need to be.
It's not exactly a fun night out.

In many cases, maybe not, but sometimes people sitting up and chatting isn't an indication of them not bedding to be there.

These judgements really rule me, and Inll tell you why. I spent twenty hours sat in a waiting room last year. Towards the end of that time, a young g guy arrived with his girlfriend, and after a while started telling me how most of the people shouldn't be there, including me. He explained that his girlfriend was having palpitations, so needed to be there, not like me. What he didn't know, was that fifteen plus hours earlier my heart rate had been dangerously fast and was still out of rhythm. Following a bag of fluid and a hefty dose of beta blockers, I was okay enough o sit upright under supervision, so spent the day sat there. His girlfriend was soon discharged. Is spent four days in hospital, but for much of my time in A&E, once the immediate crisis had been calmed, I was able to sit and chat, even though my heart was beating erratically and putting me at risk of a stroke.

it was horrible to be judged in that situation. So please think before you decide who should and should not be in A&E, just based on external presentation.

My dog caught my hand with his teeth when a treat hand over went wrong. Nhs advice is to take antibiotics. I called the GP surgery. No appointments and they told me to go to A&E. It is a fault in the system that urgent care means A&E no matter what.

I've been in the A&E waitinf room for hours at a time on multiple occasions with a child who looks fine from a distance and is playing and chatting and sometimes eating. But as soon as you lift her top you'll see she's in respiratory distress and her stomach is sucking under her ribs, heart racing. She needs a nebuliser every time and gets admitted with alarming o2 levels, but she SEEMS fine to observers. So if I see people who look fine, I just think I'm not getting the whole picture. Going to A&E is rarely the quick and easy route. It's usually horribly boring and long. Choosing that if you're fine suggests you might not be fine in other ways!

Since Covid people, when feeling poorly, want treatment and they want it NOW. Generally people aren’t prepared to try remedies from the chemist and/or to see if things progress or get better. The internet too has caused people to look up symptoms and self diagnose and of course it’s always something major!!!
Having said all that in the case of babies and children you can never be too careful.

Totally agree. I almost died in there a couple years back from anaphylactic shock. I went unconscious after 3.5 hours of not being treated. Anyway there were loads of people not looking particularly ill or in any terrible pain my partner said. Previously I’ve been in there in agony with appendicitis. However the issue is GPs seem to not be seeing people much !!!

What a load of bullshit. The Pitt isnt a new term, nor is it specific to where you are, its an americanised term.

Half of attenders arent alcohol related at all. the vast majority of patients are elderly, hip fractures, falls, infections mostly urine or chest. Next is exacerbation of COPD. After that theres many, many more, derranged bloods from GP, chest pain, diabetic complications, stroke/TIA/high blood pressure, new onset confusion generally infection related delerium, then alcohol related and mental health.

Lastly, back in my days on a surgical wards, i saw many a patient visited by staff wanting to arrange payment for the treatments they have received.

Please dont post random crap very poorly disguised as facts.

And that was just the staff 🤣🤣🤣🤣