To love A&E despite the wait?

[HotTiredDog]

Over 9 hours in a very busy city A&E today with DM, following a fall at home.
They have established that her heart is fine, lots of good blood stuff, X-rays of queries and carried out dressing of wounds.
This was free at the point of need & was carried out by amazing professionals, with the utmost care & thoughtfulness.
Seriously, 9 hours was nothing for all this attention, not really.
The tragedy was on the MH side, with some seriously unwell folk who couldn’t be given the care they so desperately need - I dearly wanted to help but had no way of doing so.
I am so proud of & grateful for the people of A&E. We must keep it safe.

easier to love it when you’re not the one in pain.

Yanbu.

Took DS in gasping for breath with croup. Got him in the door. The staff clocked him immediately & it was action stations, kid can't breathe, there was no waiting, he was seen & got steroids in minutes.

DD as a baby - went in getting grey/working hard to breathe. Seen fast.

Ime they see who needs to be seen & they see them fast. The only times we've not been seen within 30 mins:

1. first occasion: i arrived in an ambulance & was left a bit unattended for 2 hours, by which point there was blood pretty much everywhere. The consultant went berserk that i'd been left bleeding profusely after a miscarriage for too long & was v apologetic & got me sorted v quickly
2. second occasion: realised afterwards we probably shouldn't have been at a&e. I'd been sent there by 111.

When you need to be there, generally you get seen & sorted fast.

I would say (and sorry to all the doctors/nurses) that the difference in care if you arrive on a weekday vs a weekend is a bit scary. It should be the same staffing 24/7.

No. I was sent straight there by my GP with a letter that I needed urgent attention.

A member of staff checked me in chatting about how much she hated working there, people come in regularly looking for attention. Three hours later I was lying on the floor weeping and pulsating with pain, the door opened and a nurse yelled at me to get back up.

I've had three different types of cancer and the last thing I want is unnecessary attention from hospital staff.

They mixed up my name with a similar one, I knew it was an error, knocked on the door and explained it was me but they sent me away.

Ten hours later I drove home unseen and barely able to focus on the road. I needed to get back as I had nobody to mind DC.

I hate A&E.

A&E is staffed the same regardless of time or what day it is, however it’s unpredictable with the volume or acuity of patients which is what makes the difference. The volume of patients is at least double to what it was when I first started working in A&E, staffing has increased for this. We now get so many more trauma cases particularly stabbing and shootings than ever before. It’s rare for a day to go by without a patient requiring a cracked chest and open heart massage due to their injuries. This takes up a lot of staff, resources and space which will affect other patient journeys. Staff are just good at being subtle when these things happen so others in the dept would not realise what is going on.

im sure I speak on behalf of all A&E staff when we say we are always glad when the most urgent of patients are dealt with straight away, we just wish we could do this for all patients and the staff hate the waiting conditions as much as the general public. We too have to deal with this on the other side with ourselves as patients or our families.

We do need to appreciate A&E as we are in danger of losing what we have. There is a reason why no private A&Es exist in the UK, it’s simply not a profitable service. I worry what will happen if services become private and people require health insurance.

Emergency care is ultimately far more shit in the UK than in any comparable country. (I can personally vouch for France, Switzerland and UAE). Terminally ill DM was put in a cupboard when I complained politely about lack of infection control. She’d been sent there by her oncologist for - ironically - neutropenia, and required hospitalisation.

The NHS version of A&E is probably acceptable if you’ve spent your entire life living in a cave and are unfamiliar with modern healthcare and its efficient delivery. Otherwise, it’s like a fucking field hospital without the war.

Elderly relative was taken to A&E this week with suspected sepsis from a UTI. She spent about 6hrs on a trolley in a corridor & despite repeatedly asking for a drink of water she wasn't given anything to drink the whole time.
She thankfully didn't have sepsis but required antibiotics, but the hospital pharmacy didn't have them in stock so she was sent home with a prescription after all pharmacies had closed..

Yes. You got seen. But it wasn’t free. We are taxed for it and it’s incredibly poor in terms of service and experience in comparison to the treatment in other countries. We’ve been sold this ‘amazing NHS’ rubbish as part of our culture but when you go away and see how other countries do it, we are leagues behind. It’s embarrassing and pathetic.

This

Ime they see who needs to be seen & they see them fast. The only times we've not been seen within 30 mins

And yet people have died waiting to be seen…

That’s great, I’m glad things are okay.

I have never had a positive experience in A&E personally - the last time I went, the doctor gave me the wrong meds initially and my GP knew nothing about the visit when I went to see them two days later.

Said GP sent me back to A&E (wanted to get the paramedics to take me but I said I would make my own way in). Ended up spending the most stressful night of my life in a corridor opposite the Covid ward. (Several years post covid 🤷‍♀️).

If something happens again, I will be refusing to go, I would rather take my chances

Oh and they didn’t give me a form to order lunch so there was nothing for me except a manky salad which was way past its best, and the nurse who was dealing with my meds kept having to come and check which ones.

There were other issues but they might be outing

9 hours for bloods, x-rays and a few queries answered - what's not to love about that?!

The NHS is not free and neither is it fit for purpose.

It’s truly awful.

I was unfortunate to spend over 8 hours in A&E, suffering a heart attack.

I decided that it was best to go home and take aspirin.

I asked a few times, should I maybe have some aspirin?

I was in ‘Majors’ I think, so it’s where they bring you to after A&E.

I was never going to be seen I realised as each person that came in was far more critical.

Everyone else was 80 plus.

One local nursing home had called 3 ambulances that evening.

A&E isn't safe. There are more and more people acting as Doctors on rotas who are not qualified but can even get paid more than the Doctors they're not qualified to replace.

Look up the 'Every Doctor' campaign - "A doctor-led community of NHS patients & staff standing together for:
Excellent care for everyone
A well-supported workforce &
A well-resourced, publicly owned, sustainable NHS"

And this published by the British Medical Association (BMA) just last month -

"Half of hospital trusts employing non-doctors on doctor rotas
by Ben Ireland

We are concerned by the ‘haphazard’ approach to advanced practitioners staffing by NHS management
Published: Saturday 25 April 2026

Almost half of hospital trusts have been asking non-doctors to fill in on medical rotas, according to FoI (Freedom of Information) requests lodged by the BMA.

The association had responses from 85 of 202 trusts in the UK, with 41 (48 per cent) confirming they permit AP (advanced practitioners) to cover doctors’ rota gaps.

APs are healthcare professionals with backgrounds including nursing, paramedic, physiotherapy and pharmacy. While many are experienced in their base profession, working on medical roles is beyond their scope of practice.

The BMA has said using APs to fill doctor rotas is a risk to patient safety and that the FoI data showed a ‘slapdash’ approach by NHS trusts and a postcode lottery for patients.

BMA council chair Tom Dolphin said the findings were evidence of a ‘haphazard’ approach to staffing from NHS management at the trusts in question.

https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/half-of-hospital-trusts-employing-non-doctors-on-doctor-rotas

I suspect you are a psyop OP. People are dying waiting in A&E or dying in corridors waiting for beds. Get real.

I think people who choose to work in A&E are amazing. You cannot compare it to any other ward or speciality in the NHS. I had an urgent CT scan in radiography yesterday. The unit was calm and very well staffed. Compare that to our local A&E, which resembles a war zone. I did my nurse training in the 80s and A&E was very different then. I cannot imagine how exhausting your shifts must be.

YANBU

I was referred to A&E by my GP on Tuesday. I got there at 2:20pm, was home for 7:20pm..... during that time I had an xray, ecg, blood tests, steroids and a nebuliser. Also got a nice sandwich and a cup of tea.

Very grateful to them x

My experience of A&E in Spain while living there. Signed in, seen, diagnosed, treated and on my way home in the middle of Saturday night. All within 2 hours. And they spoke to me in clear English due to my woeful Spanish speaking.

And in the UK, Newcastle, waited 11 hours, problem was dismissed by the doctor I eventually saw (despite being later diagnosed as a wound infection) without any real examination.

I'm older and I live in terror of needing to go to hospital in the UK.

My Nan is currently in hospital and is being treated disgustingly, shes 91

While im glad your mother has had good care, not everyone does sadly

Sadly, it’s the fact there are now so many 91 year olds, often frail, with several complex co morbidities and in very poor health that are in and out of A&E like a revolving door and at the heart of the NHS capacity problems. No excuse for poor ‘care’ though.
Difficult conversations needed. Nurse of 36 years.

I was made to feel like I was making a fuss and i was a timewaster and it was just anxiety got sent home turned out to be a pulmonary embolism. Another time I apparently assaulted staff in resus (I have no memory of this) then I had a mh assessment that I was apparently fine (again no memory of this) then I was told to leave and that i was lucky they wasn't calling the police at this point im incredibly confused had no idea what had happened and was shocked as im not a violent person. Went home passed out got took back turned out I had a brain bleed. So no I don't like or trust a&e or drs

I'm currently working away in a developing country and the healthcare service is better here than in the UK, especially emergency care. You pay for it but it's extremely cheap and taxation here is almost nothing so it balances out.

The last time I was in A&E my child was in huge pain and we had to wait eleven hours. It was during the night and there were two sets of police officers with drunks shouting the odds. My dd kept screaming when the pain was at its worst and the drunks were yelling.

Old people were din alone and being left to wait.

I thought the whole thing was horrific and I was ashamed and really upset that this is how things are.

I’m so pleased your dm is ok and got the care she needed but how you can say that after 9 hours.. I’m not sure.

When it works well it is great. Unfortunately often the staff are so stretched that it can’t work well because there aren’t enough resources to go around.

i had to go with DS yesterday with something that if not dealt with promptly could have led to the need for urgent surgery, thankfully we were seen within 10 minutes and the doctor was able to solve the issue (just!)