To think some things should just be turned away from A&E?

[ifallinlove]

I saw a channel 4 video about a day in a&e during the heatwave.

The first guy seen was a bloke who had decided to walk across hot tarmac to get food while at the beach and now had burns on the bottom of his feet.

He said he had “forgotten to get shoes”. I’m sorry but it’s been 35 degrees for at least two weeks now. There is no way on earth that you “forget” to put shoes on. He made the decision to do it and now sought emergency care.

AIBU to say things like this should be redirected to minor injuries and the appropriate referrals made from there? It’s his own stupidity taking up a bed in a&e!

How do you access a MIU? Where are they? Who do you ask to find one? Of course A&E is better. In fact everyone should be encouraged to go to A&E and then seen by the most appropriate person.

There’s lots of conditions GPs won’t touch any longer. Knee pain for one as I know to my cost. We need a place to go where we can be sure we will be sent on to the right person. For the first assessment of any condition A&E is as good as any orher.

But lots of us have given you examples of people who could happily chat and eat while waiting in a&E and also very much did need to be there!
Are you just poking your fingers in your ears (Figuratively speaking) and ignoring those examples

Except that you are totally wrong as posts on this thread have shown including mine. I was chatting to my son and we ate food DH brought in during the 15 hour wait for him to be admitted. He spent nearly a month in hospital so it appears that medical experts thought a rapidly worsening neurological condition might be an emergency even if it was pain free and not immediately obvious externally.

Because 9 times out of 10 it wasn’t emergent and you could’ve been treated elsewhere you just don’t want to admit it. It’s not worth arguing.

No you just don’t want to admit that it’s very difficult to assess who is or isn’t a valid patient when sitting in an A&E waiting room.

My sister spent 36h in a&e having had a heart attack whilst waiting for a bed on the cardiac ward.
She's vegan and they didn't have any thing suitable in the hospital so she had to get food brought into her. She had various people visiting her on as off for the time she was there. She very much needed to be there!

Another time my mum spent over 24h in A&E waiting for a transfer to an orthopedic hospital after sustaining two spinal fractures. Whilst she was in too much pain to eat the rotation of family members needed food. My dad stayed with her as much as possible with an extra person bringing him food and allowing him respite.

I was in hospital a few years ago and due to allergies I had a restricted diet. One day there was no food available that was safe for me to eat and I had to get a staff member to walk me to the nearest Tesco to buy my own food as there was no one that could have brought me any food.
Other patients regularly got food ordered in to the ward. Food can be dire and not compatible with some peoples diets.

My child had cancer. The very same day he was in A&E, he had a cardiac arrest.

Can't get much more emergent than that. Earlier in the day he was talking and playing on his ipad in A&E.

Again, thank god they don't triage people elsewhere simply because they are capable of chatting.

Maybe it is you who didn't actually belong there considering you were far too busy judging others, can't have been in THAT much pain.

Yep.

My son was in hospital for 10 months. The food was largely awful and we ordered takeaways a lot. Yet he was in hospital for TEN months. According to OP, he should've just been sent home with cancer and sepsis because he was capable of chatting and eating.

No, you have no idea what is going on with other people.
The person you saw laughing and chatting with a takeaway could have been admitted and dead hours later.
How they present in the waiting room is no reflection on what their actual health condition is.
No one is coming round every 10 minutes and doing visual obs on them.
So... why are you?

It depends I attended many times for chemo related issues. You would never guess I’m young, kept my hair and looked one of the wellest patients there. In reality I was high risk and vulnerable and whisked in immediately. You can never judge on visuals and sometimes receptionists can struggle to triage appropriately

Man the salt between you two could season a whole summer BBQ 🤣

@PUGMEISTER21 I have a degree in Rhetoric and shitpost on many major social media platforms 🧐 In my medical opinion, triage always blows and they should give the NHS about five billion more pounds.

I'm literally in hospital for the second day running now. I definitely needed to go to a&e. Yet I walked there (from where DH dropped me off), sat quietly reading, happily ate food, had a good giggle with the doctor.

I am sure you would have looked at me and concluded i was a time waster

You cannot tell from looking at people.

Hurt is hurt. If you cut yourself badly with a kitchen knife should A and E turn you away because you did it to yourself? Of course not. You won’t be the first person seen, but you’d still be entitled to care.

You’ve missed a very important point. If 9 out of ten visits turn out not to be an emergency (a figure I dispute), then one out of ten is. Many times people go to A & E not knowing if there is an emergency or not because they are not qualified to make the call themselves. I’d rather have a service that tolerated non emergencies than one that discouraged the real emergencies. Better safe than sorry.

Absolutely this. And I dispute those figures too. We’ve seen enough threads on MN from mums who suspect their child has diabetes and the batshit advice that follows - as though MN is the guardian of A&E services. There was one a few weeks ago in which the DS had clear signs of DKA and posters were advising OP to wait and see her GP. As it turned out her son would have died had she waited and followed the advice.

I was in A&E last night.

Everyone who was in thst waiting room, around 100 were all chatting, sitting, eating.
Including one who had a mini stroke, one who had sepsis. A broken leg, an infected leg, A mini heart attack, Infection in the bone , Kidney infection, Severe pain and MULTIPLE other things.... But initially all these people 'looked ok'but clearly werent untill they had an xray / blood tests etc

So.....