Big rise in people going to A&E in England for minor ailments, data shows

31 comments

1. Funnily enough, a lot of this wouldn’t even be hitting a GP practice either. There was a time we used to be pretty self sufficient with these things and now it seems people want a Gp for the littlest of things.

   Where did we go wrong in the last 20-30 years ?

   I have my ideas about the matter …

2. Foreigners aren’t aware of the GP and go to A&E instead and clog the place up like idiots. My girlfriends family are from Ethiopia and they do this, they even tell eachother when one will say to the other that they feel a little off that they should go to A&E, no you fucking shouldn’t. It’s not an emergency ffs.

3. Fun and relevant story.

   My 96 year old grandmother burned herself on her stove, and the resulting blister popped and then got badly infected without her realizing (she’s not got much feeling in her fingertips these days).

   My aunt noticed several days later that she had a fucking red line travelling down her finger from the wound. All she needed to fend off potential fatal consequences was some antibiotics but her GP was like “nah, sorry, can’t see you today, even taking into account those symptoms and your age. Come back in a few days.” Oh yeah, come back in a few days when you’ve possibly developed a fatal infection at 96, no worries. She had to go sit in A&E for 6 hours overnight on hard plastic chairs at fucking 96 years old just to get antibiotics prescribed. The hospital doctors were like “yeah, if you’d have left this until you could get a GP appointment you could have been in real trouble.”

4. Well yeah, my gp practice refuses to make an appointment unless you’re available to ring them in a three hour window in the morning. Even when I do, phone lines are full and I get disconnected. Of course people will resort to going to A&E if this is common around the rest of the country.

5. I’m simply shocked that earache admissions are rapidly rising each year following the NHS no longer classifying ear wax removal as an essential service and so not covering it through GPs. Simply shocked.

6. When it takes 3+ weeks to see a GP do you blame them?

7. Not in England, but my nearest minor injuries is a 20 minute drive on the motorway away, and is only open 9-9.

   A&E is a 5 minute drive away and is open 24/7.

   So…yeah. Makes sense.

8. Then sort out the GPs – they are not working, and appointments in the distant future for current problems are not viable or reasonable.

   More phone appointments same day, even if that’s to triage, get the non-issues dealt with or redirected, etc.

   TBH the non-issues may be dealt with by a pharmacist these days too, they have some powers now to prescribe.

9. I find it a bit weird that the article has trivialised a lot of these as always being minor. Sure, a new cough is minor but if you’ve had a cough for a few weeks you’re told to get it checked out. Sometimes earache is minor but it can be debilitating too with antiobiitic resistant ear infection rates rising which are pretty serious. Backache- could be minor or if it’s from a prior injury you could need an xray and be facing serious problems.

   Side note: not sure how common this is but my old GP didn’t even do any tests at the practice. Anything you went in about that required any kind of blood test or such you were just referred to a clinic at the hospital. I can understand in that situation just skipping a week wait for an appt to wait anorher week for a clinic then wait for results, and just going straight to the hospital instead.

10. My dad had a heart attack today (a relatively minor one fortunately). he called 999 and of course no ambulances so he was told to get a taxi so he called me and I got him an uber.

    Once arrived at A&E there was a queue of almost 20 people to check in. The place was heaving. he had to wait 2.5 hours to see a triage nurse, the frustration point is there weren’t even enough seats for those waiting so you get triaged and then you are stuck standing up because you lost your seat. You have a heart attack and you can’t even sit down in this country.

    Ultimately various tests and almost 6 hours later it is confirmed a heart attack and finally blood thinners are provided. He gets a chair not in the waiting room but in some sort of emergency ward. (well the corridor of the ward leading to an exit.

    Tomorrow on new year’s eve when you have added drink related problems I imagine it to completely break down.

11. Access to see a GP has become virtually impossible even for babies. You are now required to fill out an e-consult form and someone calls you back. Problem is by 9 am e-consult is usually with a message saying try tomorrow. So there is only a half hour window to even get to e-consult. What hope then for a 96 year old?

12. The GPs are a mess. Had an appointment for my 3 year old on Friday. Told them specifically that one type of antibiotic makes him vomit almost immediately and not to give us this; guess what we were prescribed…..we cannot at this point contact the GP as was Saturday, spoke to the pharmacist to switch out to another effective antibiotic, no help, told to contact 111, spoke to them, referred immediately to A&E, we waited 5 hours just to get a new antibiotic (took 5 minutes once seen) all because a GP can’t read prior notes and listen, no weekend coverage at all and the “supporting” apparatus other than A&E being non-existent……all for a simple task.

13. Takes forever to get a GP appointment and a good number of them offer only same-day appointments.

    Some people then choose wait longer until their ailments become actual hinderances to getting by and become in need of more urgent treatment.

    Still can’t get an appointment though (especially with some people booking an appointment for only slight ailments).

    People who require treatment go to walk-in centres or A&E instead, who are more geared towards sudden injuries and emergencies and as such take longer to process the longer-term issues people have been going with.

    With A&E getting more full of people they’re less suited to handling, ambulance hand-over times are drastically increased leading to them spending more time waiting around outside hospitals than being usable.

    Overall, people need to be able to book GP appointments in advance and be able to cancel them easily if their issue has been resolved in that time. We need an end to this ‘same day appointments only’ rubbish.

14. The other day I called 111 because my 20 month old daughter was struggling to breathe (RSV). 111 tried to get me through to my GP so they could listen to my daughters chest, but GP is currently inky offering video consultation. 111 then looked into my local urgent care walk in clinic, but they stopped taking kids at 4pm! So the options were an ambulance which we were told could take hours, or borrowing someone else’s car to drive us to a&e. 4 nebulizer doses of steroids later and I made it home just before 111 called back to ask if I still needed the ambulance.

    The system is on its knees. I try my hardest not to use A&E, but at this point, it’s impossible to see a real doctor in person outside of that setting.

    I hate complaining about the NHS, but it’s really in such an underfunded spiral of doom right now, that it’s hard to be positive

15. People dont realise that GP Practices are essentially private practices that contract to the NHS. Doctors buy into a practice and proactices are funded according to how many patients they have on their books. The more patients, the more the practice gets paid. The more patients the practice has the poorer the service becomes for patients. NHS reform should start with GP Practices and hey way they are established and funded.

16. Get ill

    Try to see doctor

    “That’ll be 3 weeks mate”

    Get more ill

    Call 111

    “Go to A&E” or **11 hours later** “Go to A&E”

    Goes to A&E

17. It’s because of how shit GPs are. That’s the only reason. It’s not the fault of the public

18. This is a sign that the service isn’t working how it’s supposed to. Just a reflection of a failure on the preventative care end.

19. I had some health issues earlier in the year. I was fobbed off by my GP multiple times and eventually ended up brought to A&e by an ambulance where it took 12 hours to receive treatment. There were no beds so discharged me at like 4am despite still feeling incredibly unwell. Ended up back in a&e a couple of days later where I was admitted for a week then spent 2 months off work recovering.

    Nobody wants to be in a&e but most people genuinely have no other way to receive healthcare.

20. They’ll probably use this as an excuse to bring in a charge at the hospital. Nothing too high, but just enough to turn you off.

21. Well that is cause GPs can’t see you for weeks, and 111 just tells you to go to A&E for near anything

22. Honestly I’ve never understood why we can’t just have 24 hour GP practices where you just turn up and get triage’d (I mean the present situation untrained receptionists often act as triage staff even though they aren’t supposed to), and there is a rotating hot seat of GPs so there is 24/7 coverage.

23. It shouldn’t be easier to go to A&E and wait instead of fighting for a position on the phone at 8am or using your doctors online service at the same time in the hopes they get back to you to book an appointment. Here we are though.

24. How shocking! What a surprise when preventive care and gp appointments are non existing

25. I mean not even just GP’s – the other month I walked past an old lady who had fallen in the street and potentially broken her hip and arm, in the cold. Rang 999 as she couldn’t self mobilise and they determined that it wasn’t an emergency and told me to call 111 instead, an hour and a half later 111 determined it should have been a category 2 callout (ambulance within 30 minutes) and that 999 was the appropriate service to contact. The whole health service is in a state.

26. Problem is you can have a minor ailment for weeks but cause it’s so difficult to get an appointment at the GP now it becomes a major enough issue that you call 111 who then send you to the hospital

27. This is what happens when you can’t get to see a primary provider.

    A shit load of things that are too serious for “leave it and it’ll be alright” but aren’t actually serious enough for “walk into the emergency room” or “call an ambulance”.

    Local injuries units *should* pick up some of these, but they are *also* way over capacity.

    As with the post on the developers over that way, this is the end result of not funding or building enough infrastructure for long periods of time.

28. It’s because it’s at least a month wait to see a GP .

29. Not surprised in the slightest, the NHS is a joke now regardless of the cause(s). It was one of the few things I felt good about paying into and now I have to pay for private healthcare just to get a GP appointment despite already paying for this dog shit public service.

30. I find the receptionists are the worst part of the experience.

    I had a UTI a few months ago that my midwife had sent an email to my GP so I could just access antibiotics. I’d had it for a week at this point without my knowledge. Receptionist said no email had been sent (it had) and that I’d have to “wait a few days”, or she could give me a pharmacy referral (pharmacist couldn’t do anything because I’m pregnant). Telling a pregnant woman… with a UTI to wait a few days… Ended up going to urgent care.

    Second recent time was about a year ago and I needed some prescribed anti inflammatories for a tendonitis flare up (ibuprofen not cutting it). Receptionist told me that if I had a muscle injury I needed to go to A&E.. I’d been going to the GP for the same issue for 10+ years as shown in my notes and not once had they said this was the wrong thing to do. I just hung up and tried using my arm less/dealt with the pain until it went away.

    If there was a way I could just buy the medicine I know I absolutely need or see someone else for them I would, ringing the surgery is always a last resort and a pain in the arse unless you’re booking something routine like a blood test or vaccine.

31. Not surprised when GPs don’t let you book appointments less than a week or more in advance. Am I going to know a week in advance that I’m unwell? Most likely not.

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