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?

Ok the scenario i was responded to was days-weeks after the event.

It seems odd the 111 told you to go to a&e not urgent care. Is there no urgent care in your area? In my area when I broke a bone that is where 111 told me to go. I thought a&e was for life threatening injuries.

Yes general practitioners not ENT specialist.
ENT specialist have additional training and expertise in the area of Ears, Nose and Throat. This additional training and expertise allows them to do things a GP can not safely do.
If you break your leg your GP doesn't put the cast on the leg or if you need open heart surgery your GP doesn't open you up in the surgery.

I'm terrified of needing care now through a and e and I'm middle aged.

I honestly don't know how I would cope as an older person on a and e hard chair esp in summer heat or winter cold.

The entire set up needs re designing and looking at

They need different seating for certain people eg those with a broken arm could probably survive on the current hard seats as long as the person next to them was observant and kind.

However someone with acute pain or sickness could be assigned a reclning type chair it wouldn't fake much and yet make such a difference.

• along with air con of course and proper ventilation and more space

Yes but in most hospitals the x-ray department is pretty much next door to A+E.
Personally I'd prefer to go...
My home to A+E to X-ray
rather than...
My home to GP to A+E to X-ray
Going to the GP is an extra step that's not needed.

You’re in the wrong. You’ve been in pain since lunch time you should have called your GP while they were open. They would then refer you to the most appropriate place. A&E is for emergencies- things that have just happened right then not things that have been going on a few days. If you couldn’t have got in with your GP then you’d head to the pharmacy where they could take a look and if needed they could refer you to the correct people. Always best to get the referral as it shows you’ve followed the process they want you to follow to keep waiting times down.

unfortunately the NHS is on its knees, more and more people are turning up and using it not in the way it was designed. That with GPs not having the same service they had years ago is a disaster.

I hope your ear is better soon

And it’s people like you who give terrible advice online that may prevent people seeking the care they need.
it is not people like the op who cause huge waiting times - it is decades of underfunding and privatisation coupled with chronic mismanagement of available resources.

The OP apparently went to her local A+E which triages you to either A+E or Minor Injuries.
That's where she was sent.
She was at Minor Injuries (which is what some hospitals call Urgent Care) but to get seen there she had to present at A+E first.

Exactly. OP had every right to go to A & E!

111 are absolutely notorious for telling people to go to A&E for things that could be dealt with by other services.

She was in minor injury unit

People massively misunderstand a and e (mainly because its so hard to access other healthcare). The issue is that staff understand they will have heart attack patients, children with life threatening illnesses and RTA victims all day and night, they really shouldn't be dealing with a long term ear issue. You need to ask yourself "is this an accident" e.g. is something bleeding severely or potentially broken - no. Then "is this am emergency" clearly not, you've had it a while and waiting to go to a minor injury centre or a GP the next day would be fine. I remember queuing with my little girl in my arms with sepsis whilst a man at a and e was going "so my thumb doesn't hurt but kinda looks weird" the staff were pretty rude to him too.

And why shouldn't she have been in minor rinjuries?

A friend of mine has a very snappy nurse telling her off for coming into A&E for a "sprained ankle". Turns out it was broken and she was in a cast for 8 weeks.

Didn't you read? She was at the MINOR INJURIES UNIT. It just happens to be accessed through A and E

@Lexibletheflexible All of your made up scenarios involve having an effective or at least functional GP practice. I had to go to A&E with a worsening hip injury that I had been walking around on for 10 days because I knew I needed an x-ray. I contacted my GP first (online triage) and they gave me an appointment to see a physio in two further weeks. I called them back and emphasised my risk factors and red flag symptoms and they still refused to give me an appointment with a GP or refer for x-ray. I knew I couldn't utilise minor injuries because they only x-ray limbs, so feeling like a time-waster in A&E it was, where they did the x-ray, CT and an outpatient MRI a couple of days later. And before you ask, I had in fact fractured my hip and if I'd waited for the physio appointment at the GP I could have ended up needing a hip replacement.

Why would someone listen to advice given by an anonymous person online? If they do that then that’s on them. I wouldn’t listen to someone called strawberrylemons on mumsnet, that’s just silly.

OP didn’t die and nothing bad happened to them, the nurse was right. They should have waited to use the appropriate service.

You sound as though you misunderstand yourself. A&E isn’t just for heart attacks, RTAs and limbs hanging off. Several medics including 111, and this morning , OP’s own GP told her to go to A&E for treatment. If she had realised there was a foreign body in her ear she would have gone to A&E earlier. She thought it was simple earache which would have been appropriate to GP. As soon as she found out it was a foreign body it became an A&E or minor injuries problem - the fact that she didn’t find out it was a foreign body until further down the line doesn’t change that.

And OP may not have been bleeding yesterday but she certainly was this morning, which is an indication that she was in the right place to start with. Maybe if the nurse hadn’t offloaded onto her she would have had treatment sooner.

Yes receptionists and triage nurses are known for being rude sometimes, you should've stayed though as this sounds like it's serious.
Sorry that happened to you but you need to advocate for yourself.

And the appropriate service was A&E, as evidenced by OP’s update. She contacted her GP who said go to A&E. Let’s hope she doesn’t get Nurse Ratchet again !!

Why would you go to a+e and wait hours to be seen? Much quicker to get an appointment with your GP or even just speak to them, they refer you to x-ray and you attend the department that day. You might wait a short time to be called in the room and you may have to see a Dr straight after if you have a broken bone.

So the a+e route

Arrive at 8am
Wait until up to 12pm to be assessed by a HCP
HCP refers you for a+e list xray. You wait 2 hrs for that.
You go back to A+E and wait for dr to review x-ray (maybe another 2-3 hrs)

It's now 5 or 6pm

GP route

Call GP or make digital report at 8am
GP calls you by 9am and tells you to attend xray
You get to xray department by 10am, and have the xray by 1030am.
Reassessed and bandaged by 1230pm

You are wrong. Read the thread

It’s amazing how many people do come to these threads and set store by the advice though. As I said in an earlier post, there have been threads regarding children being visibly ill with signs of early onset diabetes and the OP has been warned off A&E time and time again even though that’s a medical emergency. It never ceases to amaze me how may people don’t know the first thing about the subject matter but still feel entitled to post harmful drivel.

She called 111 and followed the doctor’s advice. You are in the wrong, not the OP.
Always best to read the thread.