Avoid A&E, says NHS as winter crisis bites early

18 comments
  1. Sure it’s been like that constantly for nigh on twenty years. The NHS is done for all but emergency treatment.

  2. It is the middle of summer, pretty much as far from winter as you can get. None of the things that cause problems specifically in winter (such as cold weather, seasonal diseases, ice and snow etc) are happening at the moment.

    The NHS is in crisis, but it isn’t the winter crisis come early. It is something very different.

  3. Anti-advertising – interesting concept.

    It reminds me of the tourist regions during 2020 saying “we love you any other year, but this year please stay away”. It felt very transactional.

  4. Tbh I’ve been increasingly healthy after the pandemic, not because if get covid it’ll be bad for me, it’s because of wait in a and e, and real possibility dying waiting. The days of emergency care on tap are gone.

  5. Some silly complaints I have seen and or heard from A&E colleagues as a former CDU nurse:

    “I need my 6 monthly liver function test for my medication monitoring regime and there’s no appointments at my GP until tuesday” – said on a Friday afternoon while people around them in the waiting room were sitting on the floor because seats were all full

    “I’m supposed to be on 28 units of Lantus (long acting insulin) in the morning but this morning I only drew up 24 units. Thought I would come in to get checked over” – instead of… injecting the remaining four units they originally missed?

    “My eyes started to go all blurry after my sixth pint tonight”

    “I had a headache and had ran out of paracetamol at home”

    Orange urine and feeling of thirst after a long day of working in the sun and not drinking any water since 07:00

    Requests for non-urgent prescriptions

    A splinter

    A paper cut that “needed stitches”

    A pregnancy test and emergency contraception

    Months of back pain without trying to make a GP appointment

    These are the types of people these kind of announcements are being aimed at. Not the sensible people that get annoyed by these kind of announcements because “of course I plan on avoiding A&E”.

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