A+E waiting times.

Luke said:
Conversely, there is no point securing an airway if there will be no circulating volume to push around the body to make use of the oxygen.
Like you say, different models of assessment and many of the steps take place simultaneously in a team based environment.
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Yep we used to determine based upon gross haemorrhage in the army. But then we used to often use a Russian reverse triage system too. I've only ever had to use that twice in this country. In those cases you look for the most inane things first and get people to help you. Horses for courses and lots of ways of doing things. I don't think most experienced people necessarily stick to a system at the end of the day they are just there to get people through things they don't do that often.

heeeed said:
I think. I still cannot believe the hours I used to work as a junior, it just scares me.
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I agree but I have a feeling we all pay for it with our health as we get older. Most people I know seem to in one way or another. It's another perk of the job!
 
My sister used to work at a E&A (thinking of going back atm) and people who come from the back are always first. Just thank god your friend got to go there from the front entrance.
They know when the people come in/ambulance times so they spent that time to prepare as well as possible they can which also takes up time, sometimes one patient can take hours of care and still wont make it or there could be 10 people coming at once who all need urgent care. It could have been a really bad night...
 
Wow, you stayed with him all that time for his foot? Were you the driver or something? (not read the whole thing)

If it was me I'd have just dropped him off and told him to get a taxi home. If he did it on a night out I'd have taken him and then got a taxi home.

You're a good friend.
 
I had to go to A&E twice before Christmas with chest pains and breathing difficulties.

The first time I was taken in by the wife, sat in the waiting room for two hours and got sent home by some twelve year old dip **** with out any examination.
The second time was four days later by ambulance.
 
dl8860 said:
Unless it was being 'checked' for extremely severe pain due to a fracture or infection, you shouldn't have gone to A&E yourselves. You were likely set to the back of the queue due to this, which is the reason for your long wait.

What's that phrase about complaining about traffic...

You aren't stuck in traffic, you are the traffic.
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Had an accident at work last year (someone else had been negligent) resulting in a load of several 100 kgs landing on my foot. Wasn't in extreme pain and it definitely wasn't broken but was pretty badly swollen and bruised - should have been looked at in case really... GP didn't want to know unless I was actually dying* (it would have been fully healed by the time they could fit me in and too late to head off any complications) and recommended going to A&E. Didn't bother with that as wait times for anything non-critical was about 7 hours at the time.

As I found out later I could have gone to the walk in centre in our locals boots and been seen and x-rayed in minutes :| but didn't know it existed at the time.


* Which would have been more appropriate to go to A&E but you get what I mean.
 
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Dolph said:
It could be worse, you could be in a welsh A&E, far less likely to be seen promptly than England.
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Not as bad as you seem to make out. When i had sliced my index finger wide open i was seen to in less than an hour, two weeks later and i was on the operating table having a digital nerve repair.

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Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30847730
 
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Xordium said:
Maybe if the Tory scum didn't stop letting everyone into the country to force down wages there wouldn't be so many people to see.
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Wow, this actually took fourteen posts before being blamed on immigrants. That's pretty slow by OcUK standards - usually it's about four. Let's gloss over the fact that a significant part of the staff working to deal with the patients are immigrants, because obviously that doesn't matter.
 
thebennyboy said:
Not as bad as you seem to make out. When i had sliced my index finger wide open i was seen to in less than an hour, two weeks later and i was on the operating table having a digital nerve repair.

c8005ec0781ce53dead2e92bb0e4188d.png


Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30847730
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It is substantially worse than england, they miss the target on 2 in 10 patients vs 1 in 10 patients. That is a significant variance.
 
Meridian said:
Wow, this actually took fourteen posts before being blamed on immigrants. That's pretty slow by OcUK standards - usually it's about four. Let's gloss over the fact that a significant part of the staff working to deal with the patients are immigrants, because obviously that doesn't matter.
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I've never understood this point of view that because we need to recruit healthcare workers from abroad to work in the NHS, that we also need to let all and sundry in to the country. Can we not just recruit the people that we want to come to the country, and not let in anyone we don't want in the country?
 
Meridian said:
Wow, this actually took fourteen posts before being blamed on immigrants. That's pretty slow by OcUK standards - usually it's about four. Let's gloss over the fact that a significant part of the staff working to deal with the patients are immigrants, because obviously that doesn't matter.
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There is a difference between the politics of Farange and a simple statement of fact. The facts are certain areas see a numbers of immigrants enter that stretch the resources on health, socialcare and education. Services are setup in advance to cater for a specific number of people when that is temporarily bumped eg immigration or for example a major event in that area then it will have a knock on effect. There is also the angle that in some areas eg when I worked in an East London A+E for a few months that a number of the presentations are from immigrants who rightfully attend A+E because they don't understand the changes from the country they have come from compared to the country they are now in. For example, paeds presentations for D+V. If you come from Sub Saharan Africa or the Indian subcontinent then the chances are your perceptions are D+V is a killer and therefore an emergency. Now you and I wouldn't class it as such but they rightfully do from their familial experience.

You also willing overlooked the other parts I put in the post. And there is a very good argument that racing to the bottom by filling posts with cheap immigrant labour is actually undermining the quality of services. There is an acknowledgement across the board that disciplinary proceedings are greatly represented in immigrant workers and the quality of work often lower. Feel free to ignore that one too.

So why don't you gloss over actual facts ...

scorza said:
I've never understood this point of view that because we need to recruit healthcare workers from abroad to work in the NHS, that we also need to let all and sundry in to the country. Can we not just recruit the people that we want to come to the country, and not let in anyone we don't want in the country?
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Exactly, and I bet you'd never get people on here to admit it but you if you see nurses in charge of wards they physically groan when they see certain names on the bank provision staff. They know there is a good chance of getting a bad shift if you get a certain type of surname. That's not racist or whateverist. It's indicative of the quality of training in those countries. Stealing whatever provision for training poorer countries have been able to afford is nothing to brag about either - something else Meridian is glossing over ...
 
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Xordium said:
There is a difference between the politics of Farange and a simple statement of fact. The facts are certain areas see a numbers of immigrants enter that stretch the resources on health, socialcare and education.
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The vast majority of the stretching is done by locals. Immigrants may well be the straw that broke the camel's back, but they are just the straw - the load was put on by Brits. As has been pointed out, a significant number of the people in A&E are local workers who either can't get to a doctor in working hours, or who simply think attending A&E is easier. Another huge drain on all the NHS is pensioners, and that included Emergency. And the vast majority of them are citizens. Since immigrants are mostly young and healthy, they don't use the NHS as much as the less fit - who are mostly Brits.

The problems of A&E have a whole raft of causes: inappropriate use (baby has slight cough, parents rush to A&E, for example, along with various alcohol-related injuries, etc), lack of staff (most doctors don't want to work there, so there is a permanent staff shortage), endless stupid re-organisations, the cost of treatment rising faster than budgets, low priority within the NHS (nobody cares much about it until it hits the headlines) etc. Immigration makes next to ****-all difference, but makes a nice scapegoat.
 
A doctor friend of mine who works at our local hospital has said that the resources are available to do what is needed, however its the bureaucracy and HR that is screwing things up.

Example, the other week he and 5 other doctors on the same shift on a Thursday (apparently the quietest day). They sat around twiddling their thumbs as most patients had been discharged. Come Friday + the weekend only 2 of them, running around like headless chickens trying to deal with the huge rush of weekend idiots.
 
I wonder what the waiting time stats would be like if all the people who didn't need to be in A&E weren't there?

Rather than bickering over wether you should be bleeding or dying or what qualifies an emergency, ask yourself this, if you can wait more than 4 hours, do you really need to be in A&E?

I'm fairly certain that all the people who needed to be seen urgently were.
 
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