Joined up thinking NHS- sent to A&E when clearly it is neither

[Frankcat19]

AIBU to think we could save a lot of time and money with some joined up thinking. My son has broken his finger on holiday. We went to the nearest minor injuries department and spent 4 hours of our holiday getting the fracture and displacement of bone confirmed with x-ray. We were discharged and told to contact the fracture clinic back home when we arrived home to arrange follow-up.
Arrived home today and tried to call the fracture clinic. Was told I couldn't contact them directly and was transferred to the appointments line.
Appointments have told me the only way I can get a follow up appointment is to start again either through our GP but this could take months or their advice was to go to A and E today to start the process again and get him on the system.
I said but this is neither an accident or emergency that needs looking at today surely this isn't the only way. I was told it was.
I suggested I could try the minor injuries department instead and was told that might work.
So now I have to sit through the triage and possibly further x rays wasting mine and the hospitals time to get back to the same point I was at on Saturday! I am very grateful to have the NHS but this seems utterly ridiculous.

It’s a crazy system. Recently I took a friend to minor injuries with abdominal pain. We waited for two hours and saw a doctor who examined her. She suspected a strangulated hernia or ovarian torsion and sent her to A&E for further tests and scans. My friend then had to wait hours to see another doctor who said she needed further tests and scans.
I don’t know why they couldn’t have done them based on the first doctor’s assessment.

This happened to a young family member. The broken boot bones fused while she was waiting for a referral, which never came, and now walking any length of time results in pain.

It’s madness. We have 2 trusts almost equidistant for us here and so sometimes my mum goes to one and sometimes the other (depending on consultant etc) but there’s no sharing of patient info between them so scans etc get repeated!

3 hours in urgent care unit this morning. Cannot fault the staff they were brilliant but literally no further on than we were on Saturday other than we are now in the right system to get follow up appointments. Our hospital were able to see the x-rays that had been sent over.

I wouldn't have a problem at all with my medical notes being stored centrally for the NHS to use seems like a really sensible approach.

The NHS is broken. People are so desperate to save t but what are they actually clinging on to? I'd be happy to see it completely reformed.