Patients clogging up A&E with hiccups, sore throats and niggles
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74xqn2zg1eo
Posted by Tartan_Samurai
Patients clogging up A&E with hiccups, sore throats and niggles
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74xqn2zg1eo
Posted by Tartan_Samurai
32 Comments
As it always has been due to (a) people being undereducated and (b) a lack of access to other, more appropriate services like GPs.
This is not news as it’s been a constant thing since I first started nursing in A&E 30 years ago.
Spent all night in there tonight with a blocked stoma. Thankfully it sorted itself out once I saw the on-call surgeon, but that’s 9 hours with a pretty severe gastric blockage. The amount of people in there with coughs, grazes, and other incredibly minor things is astounding
Edit: getting a lot of typical reddit replies saying “you can’t tell by looking 🤓🤓🤓” and to put it bluntly yes, you very much can but that is irrelevant given the examples I’ve mentioned were the ones used by the nurse when I asked what on earth was taking so long
And then there is me who kind of probably broke my toe a month ago and decided not to go.
I honestly can’t fathom how a person reaches adulthood in this country and thinks going to A&E with a sore throat is reasonable.
Will happen if practice’s SOP is fobbing people off with the tried and tested ‘unfortunately the earliest one of our GPs can see you is next week…if it becomes worse, please go A&E’.
They well know people aren’t gonna wait a fkn fortnight, with a crook wrist or knee, to see a GP for meds when those (with adequate advice) can be sought through Accident and Emergency.
So…it cuts down on the number of appointments those doctors have to deal with.
2% of visits. Let’s not pretend that this is the reason A&Es don’t function. Struggles with capacity signal a problem in the process and our primary care system is on its knees. I can’t attend a minor injury unit or GP emergency appointment without waiting on the phone for hours and then be told I have an appointment tomorrow (or Monday if it happens to be weekend).
Not only that, the way our services are designed and named make knowing right place, right time, right person extremely difficult. The NHS is very bad at consistent naming conventions and wayfinding.
Most areas would benefit from a walkin centre for less severe things. I remember when my mum was taken to A&E from her care home a few years ago. She was waiting on a trolly to be seen while in front of her was a guy in his early 20s with a cut to his head. He did it playing football but decided to go out drinking for several hours first before coming to A&E. There was another girl in her pyjamas a similar scenario but the injury was from the night before. Both walkins with no severe symptoms so could have just been patched up by any medic. In some areas you’ll also hardly here English spoken as they use that instead of a doctor’s.
Lucky down my way they have 3 urgent care centre’s
They can deal with everything up to broken bones and stitches.
Had my hand stitched after a run in with some barb wire about a year back one person in front of me.
Now AE? Took my elderly mother after a fall 2 weeks back took 10 hours to find the issue.
People checking in with urine infections, “cold feet”
Sue me but minor things like this should be refused to be treated in a&e.
I remember when I was about to be sent home with a “niggle” it was a DVT and three blood clots in my lungs. Come on now.
I visited A&E recently with a couple of broken toes. While I was sat there (10am) it was incredibly full and the wait time was 3 hours to be seen.
A chap to my right had fallen from his bike and grazed his knee (he thought it could get infected). A lady to my left had been bit by her cat (she said she read cats can leave their teeth in people when biting them) and a girl in front of me had “pulled a muscle” in her leg.
I suppose in all these cases they didn’t need A&E treatment, just triaging towards their GP but instead took up 3 seats and sat there for 3 hours.
I’m fairly sure if there was a nurse on front desk it would be far better, who can actually see what the issue is and act accordingly.
The NHS’s 111 line will frequently advise you to go to A&E for things that definitely aren’t “life-threatening”.
There are lots of complaints that are grey areas where the person themselves isn’t qualified to know if it’s “life-threatening” or not, and they happen outside of GP hours.
In fairness, my gran had AWFUL niggles for almost two years, nearly killed her.
Went to Salibury A and E, with sever stomach pain, wasn’t put in A and E I was put into triage, a nurse put a canula into the back of my hand all the while talking and turning round so canula was moving in my hand. I sat and waited over 10 hours, and I signed myself out in the end. Found out a couple of months later that I had a stomach ulcer that was causing all my pain. It was a distressing visit, and I now use Bath RUH instead. Bath us so much better than Salisbury, Salisbury us like a war zone.
This would nit be the case if:
1. GPs we’re open on weekends and evenings. Many people can’t afford to take time off work to attend an appointment.
2. GPs had not shifted to making people use online portals to book appointments etc. Many people are dyslexic, tech illiterate, lack Internet access or can’t remember their log in details etc. This leads to many people just going to A&E because it is simpler.
3. People were taught more about basic illnesses and disease symptoms and therefore knew what they could ask for at the pharmacy instead.
4. Doctors listened to their patients. Many a time I’ve been in incredible pain due to my chronic health issue and GPs don’t really understand it and Many gynecologist don’t either and give bad advice or ignore what I tell them I have tried /researched and want to try. Resulting in me thinking if I went to A&E everytime I was in too much pain maybe they would take me more seriously.
5. Waiting times for operations / seeing a specialist where not so long. I’ve been waiting 24months to have a operation. And a few time I’ve wondered if I went to A&E frequently maybe they would prioritise my operation sooner.
The last few times I have had to go to A&E its clear that there are quite a few people who are using it instead of a GP.
My local hospital has put in place changes that mean you get to see a doctor very quickly which is great. But that is just for an initial assessment. You then end up back in the queue that is clogged up with people who have no need to be there.
The last time I was in the girl sat next to me was chatting on her phone to someone. She was complaining that she had been there for hours and was saying she had a sore throat and headache and all she wanted was some paracetamol and to go home.
The main problem is bed blocking.
People who go to A&E with a stubbed toe and a sniffle aren’t getting admitted to the hospital so they are literally no factor.
I bet a large proportion are elderly people – as per usual
It’s near impossible to see a GP where I live.
You have to fill out an E-Consult form at 8am on the dot or you’re fucked. They won’t triage you for another day, it’s same day appointments only.
They need to go back to allowing us to book appointments in advance, preferably via online and telephone (like you would anywhere else).
So no wonder people go to A&E. Also, every time I’ve called 111 their answer has been “go to A&E” even if it wasn’t necessary.
And yet the doctor I saw in A&E after being admitted with confirmed severe hyponatremia to the point where my brain had swelled significantly and my body appeared to be shutting down told ME that I shouldn’t have been there and basically to toughen up next time and drink some electrolytes. All of this after a days wait for a telephone GP appointment because 111 repeatedly said I didn’t need A&E and my Dr told me immediately to… go to A&E.
My doctor has a 7-week wait time for any appointments, urgent or otherwise. Because of that, their first point of call is to tell you if you ring them with something to go to a&e or ring 111.
I quite regularly get chest infections that require antibiotic. If I go to my doctor I have to wait 7 weeks without the antibiotics I need to get over the infection. So my doctor will send me to A&e for what ends up being a 2-minute appointment and for me to walk out with antibiotics.
I bet when I walk into work in 20 mins, I will log in to the ED list and half the patients in there will be 75+ and/or disabled with some combination of chest infection, UTIs, dementia, falls, etc
The truth is the easy stuff in the headline can be dealt with quickly, or they can be sent away. It’s the complex patients that fill ED because they can’t be moved on or sent home.
The problem is social care, old people going in with falls and the hospital won’t let them leave till they have a care package. The problem this can take over 8 weeks.
Also found out if an old person already with a care package ends up in hospital longer than a week they loss this and have to wait for another one. It should be paused, like they’re not going to be in hospital forever.
Nobody needs any sort of medical assistance for hiccups! They pass on their own in short time. What is wrong with people?
If you’re being made to wait 8 hours in a&e, you are in the wrong place
I think 111 is partly to blame, they seem to have a zero chance risk on diagnosing anything so you always end up being told to go to A&E (at least in my experience).
Can someone explain to me what the fuck a niggle is?
I’ve always felt this was the case unfortunately, often parents over compensating for children, I understand the concern, however there needs to be better access to on demand services that don’t result in visiting a+e.. part of the problem is sprouting up new houses with no infrastructure to support it in the community, adding hundreds of patients to already overstretched doctors surgeries.
Also doesn’t help if you have a GP with a long history of misdiagnosing and ignoring serious symptoms due to poor training or limited capacity. At this point, I don’t trust any advice on whether what I have is serious or not due to the danger I’ve been put in in the past – NHS has tried to wiggle out of a lot of legal situations I have brought against them due to this. :/ Luckily I got promoted and have free health insurance, so I now have an ongoing and stable relationship with a private GP who knows me and I trust to give me good advice. I have also gotten quick surgeries on serious medical issues that were ignored by the NHS, which has now improved my ability to get active and boost my immune system. I went from chronically ill to very healthy as my underlying issues have now been corrected.
1.
*calls 111 for a sore throat – triaged as choking with difficulty breathing, gets sent ambulance.
Ambulance conveys patient because of some obscure finding which is perfectly normal for pt, but ambulance crew can’t prove it is.
2.
*refuses to use GP online form to request appointment, because they don’t do technology or “don’t have time” to sit at a computer to do a form. Calls GP, but is 4th in queue and won’t wait.
Goes and sits in A&E, ignoring the fact that UTC’s or walk in centres exist.
3.
*Nursing home nurse doesn’t feel confident enough to monitor a resident, calls ambulance for HCP admission.
This is basically modern healthcare, no one actually wants to take responsibility for health, and expect hospitals to do everything.
Maybe it is people who are not able to register with a GP?
Obviously if you restrict access to GPs you’ll increase demand for A&E. Anyone with more than two brain cells can see that !
If only there 8am hunger games didnt exist to get an appointment with a gp