I get that a&e is busy, but was not expecting to be spoken to so rudely

[mitsicar]

Went to a&e tonight. I have a foreign object stuck in my ear. I did not know it was in there until someone looked last night before I left my house and said i should get it looked at. Wasn't able to go to a&e today as my son had his own medical appointment in another city that I have waited months for and we were in a hotel for last night. There was no way I was cancelling it for my own ailment.

The pain has got significantly worse. Have shooting pains into my jaw and cheek bone and my ear is making clicking noises. This is since about lunch time today. Went to a&e this evening and the triage nurse asked me how long it had been in my ear. I said I suspect a few weeks, but I thought I just had an earache and it went away after a while so thought it was gone. Got some new foam ear plugs last week (which obviously pushed the foreign body in further!) and am now suffering for it. I hadn't finished when she cut me off and said 'well I don't really understand why you have picked this evening to come to a&e' and told me I would be better off going to my GP. I am in some pain but ended up leaving because she just made me feel like I had done an awful thing by heading straight after my son's appointment. I spoke to 111 earlier in the day and they told me to go to a&e asap because I could risk my hearing and that whilst it isn't life threatening, it is both an accident and an emergency. I asked if I could wait until morning and they said no. This was the 111 dr not the triage staff. I have no idea if this is the correct advice.

AIBU to think I didn't do anything wrong? I told her a medical professional has looked at it (a friend of mine who is a dr of 30 years) and said it needs ent because of how far in it is and she actually rolled her eyes at me and said I should see an actual GP (I suspect by that she meant my own GP?) and that a&e were sending everyone to minor injuries and that cases like mine are the reason she now has a 6 hour waiting list.

Is this normal for a&e now? Is it so awful working there that being rude has just become the norm or do most people have a better bedside manner? I haven't been to a&e since I was a child and was really shocked by the way I was spoken to, after being advised to go there by 111 and a trusted friend who is a medical doctor (GP).

To add, she didn't look in my ear.

Would you have done anything different? Am I missing something?

It had been there for weeks, and then started causing pain and problems. It's not either/or. Situations change.

It's alway a mass family outing isn't it.

Thought so.

Still no excuse to be rude. The OP was sent by 111 as she was in pain.

And some NHS staff wonder why the public are rude and abrasive to them

Whether or not the HCP was rude or not is down to perception. However, leaving the unit was a bit daft! Was your child with you? You’ll likely be sent back by your GP as they will not be able to remove it safely, so you’re in for a long wait.

Yes. You might wait a few mins but I'd fully expect to be lanced and dressed by 1-130pm in that circumstance.

When.i broke my hand, if I went through a+e, I may have been triage and then sat in a queue for a+e patients awaiting xrays. That is because they have one machine for that list and several for those with prebooked appointments.

I called GP and said I've badly hurt my hand. They gave me an emergency appointment. GP said it seems broken. GP referred me for an Xray that day, walked into the xray department and got it done within 15 mins. Then went to minors. Waited an hour for a dr to look at xray, had pain relief, then seen by him and given a sling and appintment for fracture clinic in 10 days. 2hrs including travel time and broken hand was sorted.

No it isn’t. A GP won’t retrieve a foreign body embedded in an ear - they’ll likely suggest A&E, as did the 111 doctor, so OP will be right back where she started. And OP didn’t ‘admit’ it had been there for weeks, she thought it was simple earache until the object was pointed out to her.

You argued with me first that the fundamentals of A&E are different in different hospitals, of course referrals out are different depending on the hospital but that isn't what I was talking about. I was saying that everybody is triaged in the same way regardless of whether you've arrived by yourself or a GP has sent you. I'm a nurse and bed/site manager in A&E and the whole hospital and have oversight of all referrals coming into ED, the assessment unit, our same day emergency care etc...

The poor OP was treated terribly by the nurse, she's got people on here telling her she's wasting resources. She did the right thing, GP would have sent her in anyway and if ED couldn't retrieve the foreign body they would have to refer her straight to ENT.

I’d have stayed just on the basis that it’s a three month wait to see my doctor 😅

So you see the gp and they send you to ENT 'a&e' usually in their opd area. All ents have 9 til 5 walk in sessions.

Then you’re deluded

If there was one, the receptionist would have directed her there.

Unfortunaly patchy care is not good enough .id also rather self care than go.
I can't understand why the basics of nursing and health care are not put into practise in the NHS ,being hygiene and fresh air.
I'll never forget this film with Florence nightingale going into a ward with people dying of yellow fever Inna dark closes room .the first thing she did was rip curtains open and fling windows wide to get fresh air in.

I very much begrudge giving governments money for NHS when it's lost on this bloated mid.mananaged system however ....if I.was asked for specific money projects eg 10 a month for a few months (along with the rest of the country ) to pay for better a and e , ( some recling chairs for very sick people ) air con ...more spacious sperated areas / better facilities and care...I definatly would.

Patients have a duty to act responsibly of course. But goodness NHS systems need to be clear and accessible. All the cuts mean that GP practices cannot offer the services they did 20 years ago. The routes to urgent care are too complicated. We cannot expect patients to know everything about the right treatment for their situation, and trained staff should be able to guide people. This is what failed the OP here.

And people sometimes do avoid getting care because the NHS is so inaccessible, and then a stable situation might become an emergency. I don’t hold patients responsible for that either.

Ultimately, we need an NHS that functions well and it is not patients’ fault if it has become difficult to access and confusing. I lay the blame for that with the health service cuts and a system that is no longer working.

As an experienced consultant, I am often embarrassed about what the NHS has become. Am I still don’t think it justifies rudeness to any patient ever.

Nope, just aware of how the system works. Maybe try it when you have a genuine issue that warrants it instead of knocking it. Not something you've had going on for weeks

So why did you argue with me about saying they are shortcuts to A and E when I never said that?

Took my child to A&E recently with something that started out potentially life threatening but started to resolve. It was middle of the night and there were 3 other patients in children's A&E. My child is severely autistic and so we only go to hospital if we genuinely think he might lose life or limb because of how traumatic it is. We waited, and waited and waited. It was obvious by this point that it was no longer life threatening but he was suffering. He started vomiting everywhere, I was delirious with lack of sleep, I couldn't get myself a drink or to to toilet because I couldn't leave child. Eventually, I popped my head around the corner and I kid you not, 6 members of staff at the desk on their phones. 6. At the same time.

Normally I wouldn't believe a story like that but I saw it with my own eyes. When I asked for a bit of help, they weren't even embarrassed, just slowly looked up and said "yeah, you're next to be seen" and waited for me to go away again. This hospital has always been absolutely excellent in the past so not sure what's happened.

The GP has to refer you. So you need to explain to a GP what is going on

@Scapella spot on . I've been lost in this system over the past few weeks not knowing what I can do or where I can go and where I need to go.
As above id be happy to pay more ni for specific causes within the NHS I could see like better a and e waiting areas ! Short term projects

I have actually been sent to hospital by my GP for a suspected foreign body (fish bone) stuck in my throat. She phoned the hospital spoke to an ENT medic, printed me off a letter and sent me to A+E. When I got there I handed over the letter and the receptionist sent me straight to triage, who then phoned the ENT ward. I was sent up to the ward but then waited 4 hours to see an actual doctor.
Some things are not an actual emergency but can only be dealt with in clinic due to the need for specific equipment.

Yes. We need to stop responding to her/him. Me included!

Many conditions that warrant A&E may have been going on for weeks.

Yes and you don't want to risk your hearing. Not the same situation but my BIL got fobbed off by his GP about an ear issue and is now partially deaf. The ENT people said they might have been able to treat it if he'd been sent there immediately, but he wasn"t.

Yes exactly. This is the correct process.