To suggest that this is reducing time wasters?

[Icouldstillbejoseph]

I work in a large hospital that runs a maternity triage/assessment centre.

Since CV it has been much more manageable - like it is on Christmas Day.

The people we are seeing are the ones that really need to be there. None of the "my dog fell asleep on my foot and because he's a big dog it went numb for a few minutes and I just want to get it checked. I feel fine and the baby is moving" stuff.

There have been no cases of people not seeking help and having an adverse outcome as a result of not wanting to come to the hospital either.

My friend works in a major A&E. She said they're still getting the drunken, drugged up timewasters, the 'I broke a fingernail'/should be at home with an ice pack brigade as well as actual sick folk. Waiting times up to 14 hours.

One would hope that over time they filter this out

Yep - was in the doctors last week, managed to get a next day appointment and the waiting room was empty. Asked the doctor and she said it was great - they are allowed to triage the hell out of the usual time wasters with their winter colds and consequently they were only seeing people in real need. It’s what the NHS would look like if people didn’t waste it’s time and resource. Put aside how overloaded it will be with covid 19 of course !

Yanbu

I think one of the silver linings is that this is radically changing the way we provide services and changing expectations of them. Some of the changes we introduce probably won't change back.

Last time I was in my GP’s surgery (before it shut), there were two other people in the waiting room at 8am when it opened. On a normal weekday there’s a queue of 20 odd people snaking around the block by 7.45. This was before things got really scary as well. I remember thinking - maybe uncharitably - that this suggested the majority of the people in those daily queues are either lonely elderly people or malingerers wasting NHS time.