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?

I live in an area with next to no immigration adding to existing residents and provision is dire.

I went to minor injuries with infected finger, no nurse available at gp all week, was getting very painful

I have not said that, I hope you read case notes better than this. I said pain alone wasn't an emergency - as has been evidenced by OP, not being an emergency.

People are free to do whatever they want, I'm not the one on my high horse about them not being worthy enough.

Exactly, thank you. It started out as a stomach bug, but that caused emetophobia, so he was at the point of only eating a few foods and not every day, to avoid throwing up. He was originally diagnosed with ARFID, now they’re saying it’s OSFED. Hes 17 now and preparing and cooking all his own foods at set times, because having control helps.

i spend time, sitting around in the mental health bay in ambulatory majors, waiting with DD2 for a mental health assessment. Imo, it’s easy to spot the girls with ED - they are obviously skinny, but wearing baggy clothes. There’s usually plenty of food given out and they seem to have rules around eating. Still DD2 does, due to OCD - she’ll only eat packaged food, and even then with a knife and fork. If someone offered her biscuits in a tin, she’d refuse them. They have to be individually wrapped!

My adult daughter has epilepsy. If she has a seizure in public she will be taken to A& E, even though she will have recovered by the time she gets there. They will keep her in for observation. She will look fine.

Oh cool, you’ve decided pain isn’t an emergency now? I’ve been getting kidney stones for 20 years. Thought I knew the drill—until a 9mm stone caused a total blockage and I ended up with sepsis but sure, let’s shame people for going to the ER because you think it’s not serious unless someone’s literally coding -- never mind mind that kidney stone pain can be indistinguishable from appendicitis or ovarian torsion or, you know, other things that can kill you. Your take isn’t just bad—it’s dangerous. Maybe sit the hell down before someone follows your advice and doesn’t get to walk back out.

I too have been in A&E many times with my dd for MH and ED assessments. Neither are necessarily easy to spot. Many of us without EDs don’t feel the need to eat whilst waiting in A&E and staff are not handing out food. Ours has a single ££££ vending machine EDs can vary in patients. There is A typical Anorexia My daughter has a friend who has never been skinny and has had numerous admissions for Anorexia. My daughter has the more conventional type and been admitted numerous times when not at her skinniest. You’d never be able to tell when she has tried to take her own life either. She masks it all very well.

Thankfully A&E isn’t run by arm chair diagnosticians and often liaise with the ED services she is under.

I think we should remember too the huge waiting lists for the little there is under CMHT, CAMHS and ED services. The situation is dire. Many parents are battling with nothing. If people don’t want mentally ill young people cluttering up A&E waiting rooms provide better services will be necessary.

I don’t claim to be a diagnostician. However DD2’s OH, who is also there with us at weekends and evenings, is a doctor who has done a psychiatric rotation. DD2 had an ED, when she was younger.

If the MH team in A & E have decided to admit a patient; but there are no beds, they send them to the UTC for mental health, which has temporary beds. I have spent days there with DD2, while she’s waiting for a bed. There’s a TV lounge, kitchen, toilets and settees in the entrance hall. DD2 says there are some small rooms out of sight, where people sleep on reclining chairs and bathrooms. Patients get 3 meals a day, plus snacks and families can help themselves to food and drinks in the kitchen. There’s more women than men, waiting for admission usually.

I imagine, if people are waiting there for 5 days, as they may have to, they get hungry?

PS DD2’s OH also did 2 placements in A & E during his training, and did lots of locuming there, to earn extra money.

yep! Mine had obstructed causing swelling of the kidney, my BP to plummet to 80/40, infection and pain so severe I could hardly stand up. Give me unmediated childbirth any day

You wrote

‘Popoverblues · 13/06/2025 21:38
It isn't. The causes of it may be, but pain in itself is not. OP says she was discharged so I'm guessing it was neither A or E in her case.

you say that pain in itself is not a reason to present to A&E. I disagree with you, and you are still trying to argue with me.
I have presented to A&E with chronic pain that I am unable to get under control, and many other people have. The problem lies with waiting for specialist treatment, waiting years for surgery . In the mean time do you suggest I suffer at home in excruciating pain for days at a time? GP’s won’t prescribe morphine IV so the only option is to go to A&E (GP’s own words).

and yes I read my patient case notes very well thank you :-) at least I don’t say they shouldn’t be at A&E as their pain isn’t worthy of treatment 😩

I’m really not bothered what your DD’s OH experience is. We’re talking about A&E waiting rooms. You really need to focus on your own need for being there instead of others. 🤔

We can spend several days in A & E and then the UTC. Some of the other patients also get sent to the UTC, for days. The UTC is just a dedicated A & E for mental health patients.

I am bound to look around and usually other people get talking to me, and asking where things are. Or do you think it’s better I mind my own business and don’t tell them, all they need to do is ask the HCAs for food and drinks?

I don’t need your permission to think what I like, but I don’t go round talking down to other people, making assumptions about their relative’s mental health history, as you have done to me. DD2 developed an ED at age 9, and was under CAMHS for a year, who were already treating DD1, her twin sister for a sexual assault at 8 in school, which affected DD2 too.

None which has anything to do with this thread or other patients who are entitled to privacy and not to have their health diagnosed by others who aren’t even patients.

Yes, but you have decided that you can gauge other people’s pain just by looking at them. Everyone’s body deals with pain in its own way. I turned up at A&E, in agony with abdominal pain, but outwardly calm. I have a tendency to direct my pain response inwards. Later that day I was having emergency surgery to remove an ectopic pregnancy. If you had seen me sitting in A&E, you probably would have thought I should toddle off and visit my GP in a couple of weeks.

I think there is a huge difference between timewasters/people that go for fun, and people that know they dont need to be there but have no other place to turn.

I do not believe 70% or even 50% of people go happily to wait 6 hours plus to be told our fine go home.

Majority of people go to A&E as they are horrendously worried and ant get access to the other relevant services that should be available.

Ive only ever been to childrens A&E, and i dont grudge anyone there the time to see a doctor as they are clearly very worried for their child for whatever reason, serious or not.

I have two adopted daughters. Their birth mother was accused of munchausens by proxy (now called "fabricated illness"). She did all sorts of things to the older one to enable her to take her to hospital (she was actually admitted 4 times before her 1st birthday before the staff started to work out what was going on). She had done the same with another child previously. Thing is, she was treated so nicely at the hospital. She had a horrible home life with a horrible partner. This was her escape.

The fabricated illnesses weren't the main reason she had her children removed btw but they caused a lot of unnecessary suffering.

YANBU. I know this is true because A&E was almost empty during critical moments of the World Cup. If you can watch a football match instead of attending hospital you’re clearly not having an emergency.

Then 111 who can arrange an out of hours GP or can signpost you to alternative provision.

In my area.

That’s A & E

How do you know there isn't also another service? They don't advertise it, you just get it when you call 111 and they think it's suitable for you and there are appointments available. Otherwise they tell you to go to A& E.

because I live here.

And have needed to use 111 as have others I know.
things like sprains / neck or back pulls that need something more than OTC meds, weekend ear infections that sort of thing.

I had an injury that required an x ray. Not urgent as such, it just needed checking. 111 got my GP to send me to A & E

We always have to go to A&E for xrays tbf. But 111 will sometimes send us to a health centre in the local area. It's basically an emergency / after hours gp appointment at one of the big gp surgeries. I have called 111 up hoping to get one of those and been lucky but sometimes they are all taken and am told to go to A& E. But they don't advertise the service at all, and most people have no idea about it. We also once had a kind of paramedic sent to the house by 111 - he was a volunteer first aider (!) who stuck a sign to his car door. That was a bit wierd.