Forum Topic

A&E waiting times

"This means almost 100,000 people waited more than four hours for emergency care at major centres last month – nearly double the 2018 figure."  Lifted from the front page article here.Who are all these extra people, where have they come from?   Are more and more people using A&E instead of visiting their local GP or pharmacist, or using their own commonsense for minor cuts and bumps?Has there been a proper survey done of these extra bods flooding our hospitals?   The last time I was in an A&E (suggested DVT some few years back) most certainly there were several people who should not have been admitted - sore leg, easier to come here than make an appointment with mum's GP!!!  Unacceptable - they need a screening system at the entrance only admitting genuine ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY patients.   There were several of these needing immediate attention but delayed by all the time wasters blocking up the department.

Jennifer Selig ● 2034d37 Comments

The texts they send to remind you also mention the sum of £160. A lot of doctors pooh-pooh this claim, though. (And not just proctologists (Sorry!))

Susan Kelly ● 2024d

"Make sure you change your apptmt if it isn't convenient."I concur. Apparently millions is wasted every year by people who just don't turn up. It is so irresponsible!

Steve Taylor ● 2024d

So I had an NHS letter today and on the envelope it says that each missed appointment costs the NHS £160.A good extra use of an envelope and food for thought!Make sure you change your apptmt if it isn't convenient.

Philippa Bond ● 2024d

Chris Packham is not my favourite presenter.  I've always found him a bit awkward but I learnt not so long ago that he has Aspbergers and perhaps that accounts it.  His Horizon programme 7.7 Billion and Counting was great showing a good bigger view.

Philippa Bond ● 2026d

Maybe they can't afford to.  Some people - quite a lot of people - get paid by the hour, no pay if they don't work and are likely to lose their job if they don't work.

Philippa Bond ● 2026d

"Did you watch Chris Packham's Horizon programme on population?"Indeed we did. I know he is controversial but I like his presentations.

Steve Taylor ● 2026d

My FIL was sent home in the middle of the night with a cannula in his arm.

Sarah Felstead ● 2026d

At least women know how many children they've had!Did you watch Chris Packham's Horizon programme on population?

Philippa Bond ● 2026d

""What can be done to reduce Hounslow's growth rate?"Educate them. Make sure they know that there will be no benefits for more than 2 kids and no larger social housing provided just because you have more kids with different fathers. Stop people scamming the system.

Steve Taylor ● 2027d

"Perhaps it is too difficult for people to take time off work" Surely they can take a day's holiday?

Steve Taylor ● 2027d

It's the way that the NHS was set up with the GPs on contract to the NHS rather than employed by them.  They also can work in private practice and this can be to the detriment of the NHS.If the GPs worked better with the hospital patients would be able to leave earlier.  Social care and hospital care needs joining up.

Philippa Bond ● 2027d

"What can be done to reduce Hounslow's growth rate?"Simples - off with their willies!

Jennifer Selig ● 2028d

"GPs surgery underneath but the GPs aren't supposed to visit the patients.  If I know one you can bet there are others. A historical class division I suspect."How is this a "class division" - don't see what so called "class" has to do with it.  Regardless of social status, we're all in the same boat so far as the NHS is concerned.  It's NOT the medical staff it's the dotty systems that have been imposed and far too many managers and clerical bods shoving bits of useless paper about.  For starters it's ridiculous that deaths are not reported automatically as soon as they occur.

Jennifer Selig ● 2028d

I forgot the to include the source for these figures:http://population.city/united-kingdom/hounslow/

Andy Riley ● 2028d

Nothing can be done to reduce the growth rate. Look at the building in Brentford of flats. People buy them and up goes the groth rate.

Nicholas Beard ● 2028d

This is a problem with many causes, some of which have been touched upon here. But there has been very little discussion of population growth. In 2014 the population of Hounslow was 265,600 with a growth rate of 1.37% per annum. With this growth rate the population is projected to be 288,201 this year (2020). This is surely not sustainable. What can be done to reduce Hounslow's growth rate?

Andy Riley ● 2028d

And patients and their families aren't going to understand that.  There should be a computerised system to deal with all that by now.I know a hospital with the GPs surgery underneath but the GPs aren't supposed to visit the patients.  If I know one you can bet there are others. A historical class division I suspect.

Philippa Bond ● 2029d

Yes there is a cert of life in France. French people here on the French state pension have to go to the town hall once a year for each pension received with their passport and get the certificate validated and then send it back.

Nicholas Beard ● 2029d

'There are patients who have had regular screening appts made for them but who may no longer be alive but nobody including the GPs' surgery had advised the rest of the NHS'.The NHS is hopeless at this. If someone dies in hospital it's left to the family to notify their GP. The most basic joined-up care is beyond them.

Susan Kelly ● 2029d

A lot of people still do not have mobile phones or smart phones.The text message from the doctor's surgery that I have seen is far too long for anyone with an old style phone.  So the mainly elderly are being disadvantaged yet again.  Hospital apptmts and Dr's apptmts are often cancelled last minute so many patients are also travelling with difficulty for apptmts that no longer exist.  No doubt the amount of time within which they should get another apptmt is another target that is being missed.  Will we know if you try and save money on that?Is there a Certificate of Life in France?I don't think the NHS should be picking up the tab for private plastic surgery and beauty treatments that go wrong.  Is that better regulated and insured now?I've never seen "hundreds and thousands"  of unnecessary visitors in A&E.  or any obvious ones except perhaps the few but obviously too many drunks.

Philippa Bond ● 2029d

Another cost is ex pats who have passed away abroad and still get their pension. We do not have a CERTIFICATE OF LIFE in this country. When I have a doctors appt I receive two texts a few days apart. Also you can put your appts in your phone diary and it will come up on your screen. Also I put it on my second mobile and I notice a lot of people have three phones. So you could have three staggered alerts.

Nicholas Beard ● 2029d

"Perhaps it is too difficult for people to take time off work or they are working in the gig economy and can't afford to/are likely to lose their job if they take time off." I suppose these people have not heard of a phone?????  Odd that as most of them spend hours looking at their mobiles!  Don't have much sympathy for people not showing up for an appointment - there are always means of letting the hospital or GP Surgery know.  Dentists charge for no shows and I think many other outfits do as well - opticians, hairdressers, restaurants.  Use those waste of space box ticker analysts to work at the accounts desk refunding the patients who do turn up. 

Jennifer Selig ● 2029d

How many of the no-shows at the clinics are ghost patients?There are patients who have had regular screening appts made for them but who may no longer be alive but nobody including the GPs' surgery had advised the rest of the NHS, or the lists have not been updated.  How many of those are just not in the country when an appt for regular screening comes through the post - and never know about it?  The take up for some of these screenings is not very high - eg cervical smears.  Perhaps it is too difficult for people to take time off work or they are working in the gig economy and can't afford to/are likely to lose their job if they take time off.https://www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/one-three-women-dont-attend-cervical-screening-because-embarrassment/Interested to see recently that there is a sentence in the info for screenings saying:  "Please note we are not able to care for children or dependants while you have your screening." That shows a problem.

Philippa Bond ● 2030d

To pay upfront and get your money back will never happen, why? Because you need admin staff to administer the process and the goverment will not pay for those staff.

Nicholas Beard ● 2030d

Quite agree there are "hundreds and thousands who abuse the A&E departments."  How to stop that should be a top priority.  As should the no show at appointments both with GPs surgeries and with Out Patients at hospitals up and down the country.  That alone costs many millions of £'s.  I'd take a leaf from European countries who insist you pay up front for an appointment which is refunded afterwards.  Special arrangements could be made for those seriously impoverished people.  Finally, stop all the pointless "satisfaction" surveys, they are utterly useless box ticking exercises employing armies of clerks.  Spend the money on the medical staff - they're the ones holding the entire NHS together!  What point is there in asking me if I'd recommend a certain OP department to a friend??? For God's sake, my own GP can't even choose who I get to see, it's all in the hands of some faceless clerk miles away who sends out  an appointment date - you try changing it to a venue nearer or to a date that you can actually keep.  I've just had an appointment of some 5 month's standing moved from end Jan to end of APRIL!  I might be dead by then!

Jennifer Selig ● 2030d

"Don't forget that GPs are restricted as to the referrals they can make by their CCGs"I don't really see the connection to the hundreds and thousands who abuse the A&E departments. I am no expert but specialist referrals is a different issue isn't it?  In A&E you are first seen by very junior doctors before you get near to a consultant or specialist.

Steve Taylor ● 2030d

Don't forget that GPs are restricted as to the referrals they can make by their CCGshttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/08/london-gps-told-to-restrict-specialist-referrals-under-new-nhs-rationing-plan

Philippa Bond ● 2031d

There is a shortage of GPs and it can be difficult to get an appt.  GPs are ending up having to take stress leave.You should also look at the fact that whenever someone in a care home is taken ill the ambulance is called.  They don't have the staff to look after a sick person.  They need a Registered Nurse to give out medication but the rest of the staff may only be HCAs if that.  It takes two people at a time to hoist or to turn people in bed so that they do not get bedsores.  Bedsores are extremely difficult to get to heal and so are to be avoided at all costs.  Special mattresses can help but they are not always available in hospital or elsewhere.

Philippa Bond ● 2031d

"What about the people waiting on trolleys being delivered by ambulance?"And that is another HUGE problem. Far too many time wasters are calling for an ambulance because they are too lazy to make their own way to A&E or visit their GP or think they will jump the queue if they arrive by ambulance. The system could cope if people weren't so damned selfish!!

Steve Taylor ● 2031d

"Are more and more people using A&E instead of visiting their local GP or pharmacist, or using their own commonsense for minor cuts and bumps?"Yes. There are people making a mockery of A&E.

Steve Taylor ● 2031d

I've been there at the end of exams and they have been British teenagers.

Philippa Bond ● 2032d

Sorry that should have read
The drunks were not teenagers but young Romanian men.

N V Brooks ● 2032d

The drunks were not teenagers by young Romanian men.
I know this because they accused the security staff who were called to eject them of being "black b*stards", "racists" and "anti-Romanian".
The security guys were sanguine and simply ejected them into the car park.
A dreadful indictment that a hospital has to employ security personnel wearing stab-proof vests and that those personnel are  subjected to such abuse.
Such is the demand for A&E services that CXH are at the end of a £7milion expansion of the A&E department to add additional capacity.
https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/about-us/news/7m-ae-expansion-at-charing-cross-hospital-boosts-winter-planning

N V Brooks ● 2032d

What about the people waiting on trolleys being delivered by ambulance?  The ambulance cannot pick anyone else up until they have done a handover.  I have stood in a queue like this with FIL.  You can spend easily spend all night there.  Oh and there is unlikely to be a bed or a clean bed ready - they often seem to be waiting for patients to be discharged and beds to be cleaned and made.  At one time hospitals were being lambasted  for sending elderly and frail people home in the middle of the night with no care package in place and not telling neighbours/family so that the basics of food could be brought in and heating turned on.  (That actually happened to a 100 year old we knew.).  There is probably still a backlog of care packages, not enough places for them to go, and not enough carers.  Social care needs sorting out!The teenagers who end up there drugged and drunk should be made to revisit when they are sober and to pay some sort of forfeit.  It is frightening the effect and change too much of this can sometimes make to otherwise placid and well-behaved people.

Philippa Bond ● 2032d

The Tories have protected NHS funding in real terms. But that is a large cut in that the population has grown and is getting older. But above all they have used the phony need for austerity to slash the budget for social care, ensuring that demand for NHS services, particularly A&E has rocketed. All very predictable.

Eric Baker ● 2033d

Last time I went was with a broken arm and there was a lady complainging of a possible cracked rib. Really??? Cant do anything for a cracked rib anyway!

Abigail Wright ● 2033d

At most A&E departments there is a triage process where cases are prioritised, The problem is that the clock starts running when you check-in before you get to triage.
My last visit to CXH A&E was in December 2019 with a ruptured patella tendon and triage referred me to the UCC (Urgent Care Centre).
My fellow 'patients' were two people who had bedded down for the night (which, in itself is a sad indictment), three abusive drunks (at 8:00am on a Monday morning) a  rather loud woman with 'a bad headache' and one other chap who, like me, could barely walk. Draw your own conclusion.

N V Brooks ● 2034d