The NHS is in a crises over the amount of patients that visit their hospitals’ Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments every day. Here is what our editor thinks about the fact that so many people are being left to wait far too long to get help when they really need it.
Some people get drunk on weekend evenings and need – or think they need – urgent medical care. The police confirms that there are far too many people in the streets late at night who cannot look after themselves and who may end up at an A&E. If I were a doctor I would be bit tougher with these people and simply say: The diagnose is Hangover! And even if not every doctor would be that harsh, fact is that drunk people use resources that could be used better.
The number of visits to the A&E increased with more than 400,000 in 2014, compared to 2013, writes the BBC. When you hear that those extra visits would fill up nine new A&E departments, you see that we have a problem. Many of the new visitors could surely have gone to see their GP instead of crowding the hospitals. What people would need to do is just think: Am I sick enough to have to go to hospital? My personal guess is that only about three quarter of the people who pass through those doors are actually seriously ill. Just go to the Pharmacist people!
There is a problem though: that GP surgeries often are booked out, and that the doctors there are not always trusted by the public (=normal people like you and I) to act fast enough. Something needs to be done on that front for the problem to get fixed. Many also blame the NHS 111 number, that we are told to call for medical advice. The nurses working there are accused of sending people to A&E a little too often, to better be safe than sorry.
In any case, it is awful that people have to wait when they have had an accident or have fallen very ill. Hopefully the politicians will pull themselves together soon to tackle this problem.
By Loulou