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?

How do you know what they were really there for? People with mental health problems often don’t want to give their exact diagnosis, because of the stigma around it! Some of them don’t have insight into what is wrong with them. They might say, they have depression when actually they’ve got psychosis! Or, their wife has taken them, because she can see the mania side of bipolar is getting out of control, which they deny.

Why do posters think nobody in A & E should eat, and if people are eating, it means there is nothing wrong with them? Don’t you all realise, the people in Majors are getting three meals a day, plus tea and biscuit rounds? DD1 was in Majors with a broken fibula from 5 am until 5.30 pm! She was given menus to choose every meal - nobody expected her to starve, because she was in severe pain!

(At both our nearest hospitals, in different counties, people in Majors get three meals a day, plus drinks rounds)

DH was given sandwich and tea, when we were waiting last week as did every patient. They did want dh to leave until he had eaten.

Years ago I was sent to a and e with my young daughter because she had a splinter in her bottom, we'd tried everything we could think of to remove it, last resort (so we thought) was to call our G.P. surgery and we were told 'what do you expect us to do about it?' And we were directed to children's a and e, the splinter needed removing or it was going to become infected but there was nothing else we could think of to do. Sat in that waiting room feeling such a fraud, luckily it was early in the morning so not busy, she was given gas and air while they nicked her skin with a scalpel to remove it (they popped it in a container for her to keep 😆). It was immensely frustrating as we felt we were wasting a and es time but 10 years later I'm not sure there was anything else we could have done (side note, she was very annoyed as they sold gas and air to her as laughing gas and it didn't make her 😃)

As a registered nurse and also a chronic health sufferer , I think you are very wrong.
severe debilitating pain is enough reason to attend A&E, and GP’s and NHS 111 do send patients to A&E when experiencing a severe debilitating flare up.
I have endometriosis and adenomyosis, have had several surgeries however my internal organs are still ‘stuck together’. Waiting for a hysterectomy for the last couple of years .
I am on a cocktail of medication , from opiates to NSAIDs. Sometimes I require IV morphine to help the pain after a nearly 24 hour flare up. Unless you have experience of being in extreme pain for hours on end, unable to move a millimetre due to extreme pain, and wishing you were dead rather than suffer anymore , you absolutely have no right to say that people suffering pain where the cause is known, shouldn’t attend A&E.

You have zero idea of my medical history

I didn’t say I did ?

There’s lots of conditions that you need A and E for that don’t have any visible symptoms. Someone who uses a EpiPen for example must go just in case they suffer a secondary reaction. Someone might have broken something but taken strong pain meds so look ok. My child had a bang to the head once and looked like she had a little fit before going very sleepy, didn’t stop her bouncing off the walls in the waiting room 🙈 but they kept her over night for observation. Another girl was in for the exact same reason.

My local A and E has 2 clinics in the same area. A walk in and A and E so a lot aren’t Coming for A and E just need to see a GP and can’t wait 1 wk

One of the problems with my local NHS trust is it's split between two hospitals about half an hours drive apart and some bright spark decided to put minor injuries in one and A&E in the other. The next nearest hospital has both on the same site which makes far more sense, people are triaged and sent to the appropriate side. Or as they said when DH went with a blood clot 'life and death is over there'! Thankfully he's deaf and didn't hear!

You said I had no right to have an opinion if I hadn't experienced pain.

'Unless you have experience of being in extreme pain for hours on end, unable to move a millimetre due to extreme pain, and wishing you were dead rather than suffer anymore , you absolutely have no right to say that people suffering pain where the cause is known, shouldn’t attend A&E'

I'll say again: You have no idea what my medical history is. If I have experienced a level of pain to your satisfaction will you believe me then? That's a silly thing to say.

A lot of people believe pain is an emergency in itself, of course they do. It's frightening and painful and they want it to stop. And GPs and 111 refer all sorts of things that aren't accidents or emergencies as well - not least because that's where the good drugs and fancy machines are. But they help to make up the statistics of people who are there for good reason but aren't an emergency.

I said before that I don't think OP was necessarily wrong to be there, or that I wouldn't have done it myself - I don't actually have a problem with it and better to be safe than sorry. But I do have a problem with OP looking down her nose at people who she didn't deem 'true emergencies' when she knew fuck all about them so I simply pointed out that - as it seems she was discharged without admission - technically speaking she wasn't either and perhaps she should reign it in.

Unless she comes back to say she was rushed in to theatre or admitted to ICU I'll stand by that.

I was sent to A&E at 16 weeks pregnant when I started bleeding by my midwife, I had to prove I was pregnant before they’d send me up to the ward. To look at you wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with me, and I really didn’t want to be sat in A&E waiting to do a urine test, I just wanted to be checked over.

What on earth makes you think that YOU can judge who should be in A&E, just by looking round the waiting room????

I once had a gash over my eye and had to endure 5 hrs at A&E. Once triaged and dying imminently was ruled out, I just sat and quietly bled all over the floor in A&E. At least I got 3 seats to myself.
since then I now pay to go to the private minor injuries unit. It’s not cheap, but definitely not as humiliating.

Similarly, a gp wanted an urgent ultrasound scan for severe pain in the area of my ovaries. He phoned only to be told they had no walk in out patient appointments for a few weeks, but they said they could “admit” me via a&e and wait on the ward! Not only did it take a couple of hours going through a&e being triaged etc, even though they knew on the system I was only passing through, finally on the ward I was formally admitted, given a bed, a doctor came to do a full admission file of medical history, various tests and examinations, etc and there was a general impression that I’d be there a few days - just waiting for a 5 minute ultrasound scan! I even got to choose my evening meal and breakfast the next morning! Luckily none of that was needed as almost as soon as all the paperwork was done, a nurse came to tell me they were ready for me in the ultrasound room and asked if I needed a porter to wheel me down! No, consider I’d driven myself there and walked across the hospital! Quick scan, nothing found, I thought I’d just be able to walk out l8ke normal, but no, had to go back onto the ward to wait for the discharge paperwork. They like to make work!

They can't win. Treat emergencies first and leave wounds til later? Slated. Treat wounds first and someone else has to wait? Slated.

When I was growing up we had two levels of a &e. So possible breakages in the big hospital and a cottage local hospital for everything else.
theyve been closed. You could get doctors appointments and home visits. You probably worked near your home (so near your doctors) so if you had to nip out for an appointment you could. You could ring up and get a doctors appointment for a weeks time so great for stuff like pill repeats. You could also get emergency that day.

now you try for an appointment at 8.30 which you may or may not get for that day. How does that fit with commutes and work?

Start at the entry point of making GPs accessible and work for modern life and youll

You think people deliberately avoid the gp so they can have the pleasure of sitting in A&E for 12+ hours?

if that’s in reply to me. God no. of course not.

and actually I’ve realised the end of my post is missing

we don’t have enough Gps. We don’t have enough appointments that work with commutes or working life. We don’t have enough walk in clinics. At my doctors you can only get same day appointments. And when they run out they run out. So you could take the day off to try and see a doctor, be unsuccessful at 8.30 and have to do the same the next day. That could be for the usual minor stuff you see a GP for (like repeat pill prescription etc) or the more major (minor) stuff like lump your worried about or painful boil. Now the lump you’ll try again (if work allows), the painful boil your going to end up needing more urgent care so off you go to A&E.

They have streams. So, one stream for a person, who broke their ankle in a straight forward fall, and another stream for someone, who broke their ankle, due to a medical reason for their fall.

Patients might complain, the hospital is not monitoring the streams adequately.

Last week I was away from home in a rural bit of the country. Started with symptoms of cystitis late at night. Reluctant to leave until morning as I have had this before and it rapidly became REALLY bad. Had I been at home in our big city I could have gone to the 24 hour pharmacy and got over-the-counter antibiotics, but because of where we were, A&E was the ONLY option. I was very reluctant to take an A&E slot, but the staff were lovely and agreed it was my only choice due to lack of any other out of hours provision.

After a bout of noro I had diarrhea which turned bloody. Called 111 and was told to go to A&E. After an experience a few years ago where I collapsed in pain, was taken to A&E, treated like a timewaster while they completely missed the fact my gallbladder needed to be removed and left me in a really awful position, there was no way I was prepared to do that. I told the 111 person that I could not get myself there (true, I was too weak and shaky). And got a call from a clinician, had a very productive chat which lead to a robust management plan agreed with my GP. There are people in A&E who do not need to be there. But there are lots of systems telling people to go when other options would be better.

That's the problem with immigration, the country is over run and people can't get doctors appointments so what can they do?

Its not immigration, the problem is systematic underfunding of services for decades.

This is the line the politicians want you to swallow. The NHS has been chronically underfunded for years. Nothing to do with immigration.

Net migration was 431000 in 2024. That 413000 on top of existing residents. Every year. Of course it will have an effect, because we haven’t fixed the lack of funding and yet our already strained systems must cater for additional people each year. I’m sure many will be net contributors to the economy, but certainly not immediately, and in the meantime, will add an extra burden on already strained infrastructures. It’s important to acknowledge that an already underfunded system cannot manage additional bodies. There are positives to immigration but we have to strengthen the foundations of our systems first, to ensure that all who come and settle, are adequately provided for. We just don’t have that right now.

I’ll go back to my original comment of where I said you are trying to say that people in excruciating pain should not attend A&E if they know the cause??
yes I called you out on that, pure nonsense!