12 hours over night in A&E can anyone beat it ?

The sandwiches for patients in A&E seemed fresh and in the MAU hot meals were brought for those who'd been there for over 12 hours. I don't know if the staff had anything.

When my DD works nights there is no food available, she's often covered A&E and says as you don't get a break in your 12 hour shift that doesn't matter as you struggle to find time to go to the loo, let alone eat!

I had a positive experience in A&E last year.
Sent by 111 on a bank holiday Monday, seen immediately and within ten minutes bloods and ecg done. Down for chest xray within an hour, further specialised bloods done, which take a couple of hours to come back.
Was offered a something to drink and eat, while waiting.
I could not fault my care.
I was fortunate that a new fast track system was being trialled for people like myself.
Eventually I was given the choice of being admitted or going home. I chose to go home, because I was on all the correct treatment.
Five hours in A&E

I’ve been in A and E three times over the last year with DD, who has cancer and has been struggling with the meds . Couldn’t walk, hurt all over and being constantly sick with a terrible headache. We were there for 30 hours before she was put in a ward. Sat in a hard wheelchair for 7 hours, uncomfortable recliner chair (that didn’t recline) squashed in a cubicle with two other patients. We were promised anti sickness and pain relief so many times but waited another 2/3 hours for that. Talk about a first world country!

I am very sorry for the pain and discomfort people have endured waiting for treatment in accident and emergency departments.
I am grateful and fortunate to have had life saving treatment last month. Unfortunately I had anaphylaxis at a hotel I was staying in. They had cross contaminated my food with wheat which I am very allergic to. Bluelighted to hospital and treated in resus overnight needing ongoing iv drugs and monitoring. Discharged following day with replacement adrenaline injector pens and steroids.
Amazing care by all staff and paramedics. Just wish we had more staff in hospitals so everyone can have good medical treatment.

The problem is the NHS is being restructured constantly, but it is always from the top down with no care for the sick. Something not working? Oh we’ll appoint a director for that…… Not enough beds? Oh, let’s appoint a new director. Funding available? Oh let’s have badges / posters / mouse mats. The people who care are working so hard to fix people, the ones who make decisions are too busy climbing the ladder.

All a consequence of a Tory government that doesn't care about ordinary folk and their medical treatment.

As an NHS professional worker of very long standing, we only hear about what went wrong.
1,000 and 1,000 of people are seen weekly and have positive experiences, but that's not good press.
It's very disheartening for us on the shop floor.

It is underfunded so is nowhere near as efficient as it once was. My DH has been treated for an ongoing condition for many years but we can see the flaws in the system. He sometimes gets conflicting advice re tablets and medication. We phoned for an ambulance recently and after a 3 hour wait we decided to get a taxi. When on the wards there is sloppiness. He is in hospital now. Whilst I was visiting yesterday 4 men came to visit another man. One of them sat on the bed and they were clearly in the way of staff. The matrons of former days would never have allowed that. Also you can hear everything that is going on with other people. The treatment is excellent I will say but standards have definitely declined.

The long waits in A&E is not new. My Mum died 11 years ago but in the years before she died I had to call 999 many times, she spent many overnights on trolleys in A&E waiting for treatment or a bed.
My worst experience was a few months before my husband died last year. He had leukaemia but it had metastasised to his brain and he had a couple of small seizures I called 999 told he was category 2 but they were very busy, waited 7 hours for ambulance kept calling again they upped him to category 1 and ambulance came within 10 minutes. Got to hospital waited in a queue outside for 3 hours in ambulance with crew, a Doctor triaged him in ambulance. Eventually got into A&E at 11pm, at 9am next morning had to ring his Consultants secretary to say we were in A&E and we’re not going to make the 11am appointment with Consultant. Consultant came down to A&E furious she hadn’t been told he was in hospital (she was brilliant but quite scary). Eventually got onto ward a hour later.
But I can say all the staff were brilliant just the terrible system.

foxie48

When my DD works nights there is no food available, she's often covered A&E and says as you don't get a break in your 12 hour shift that doesn't matter as you struggle to find time to go to the loo, let alone eat!

Yes, that’s my DD’s experience, too, Foxie. She often eats whatever she’s taken to work for a meal when she gets back home because she hasn’t had time to eat it. Although now she can’t risk that because of the no microwave/fridge situation so storage is a problem.

She’s lost so much weight, down to a size six now.

My good friend took her daughter to A&E in the early hours ( sadly her daughter died) and she was sat next to a lady with constipation at 02.00!!

How quickly you are seen in A&E will depend, not on when you arrive, but how serious ie life threatening your illness seems when you are triaged. DD did a year as an A&E Dr before specialising, there were 4 levels from very minor to life threatening (my description!) she loathed doing the very minor cases as really they didn't need hospital treatment and had been kept waiting for hours so were always grumpy and frequently very rude. The reason people get left sitting on chairs or lying on trolleys for hours is shortage of beds. She did consider training to be an A&E consultant but she said their level of burnout is very high, during very busy periods she'd seen consultants running from one ambulance to another making decisions about who needed to be admitted immediately when actually there was no space to deal with them and staying on for hours when they should have gone home for a rest. Not surprising there's a massive shortage of doctors wanting to train in that specialism!

Visgirl You are right, many thousands of people get good and fast treatment, but ther eis a sliding scale, when things only occasionally go wrong, people shrug their shoulders, say 'Ah, well, not everything is perfecr, but generally things are good'

Unfortunately things can reach a stage where so many things go wrong, that one reaches a stage where a good outcome is a surprise, as there are so many things are going wrong.

I am currently attending my local eminent university hospital for three different problems. I have been waiting 8 months for (hospital) prescribed medication for one, 7 months for the full review of a scan and the monitoring programme for another problem and this despite me contacting the hospital asking what is happening and have just received a hospital letter saying I am showing no sign of a condition whose symptoms I explained quite clearly to the doctor, who dismissed them, as not having any relevance at the same time as saying I had a abnormally high blood chemistry reading that also indicates I have this problem.

When faced with problems like this it is very difficult to try and remember the times when everything goes right.

My experience mirrors that of others unfortunately. And as to MAU .... I sat there for hours in very cramped space ... everyone squashed in together. One staff member was coughing and coughing. None wearing masks. A nurse manager came in and read the riot act and told them to put their masks on. They did .... then took them off as soon as she walked out. My friend was there too .... on a very slow recovery from sepsis with lots of related surgery .... she was waiting for antibiotics drip. When she got home she went down with covid a few days later ... wonder where she got that?

I have COPD. Almost a year ago I began suffering a flare up which did not respond to my inhalers.I was extremely short of breathing my blood oxygen was dropping to dangerous levels, my heart rate was very high. I am a retired nurse and knew these were symptoms of a life threatening nature.I decided , as I was alone in the house to get myself to hospital as quick as possible as I was not going to risk waiting for an ambulance.
The taxi to me there in 10 minutes, lovely driver who kept me alert as possible all the way.
On arrival at A&E I was given a nebuliser (usual treatment for bad flare ups).It had some if little effect.Then put back in waiting room to wait for doctor. After sat thee for nearly an hour I got very short of breath again, and developed a sudden pain in the right side of chest going into my back.I managed to get to reception desk with help of a security man who got a nurse to see me.Nurse said I was panicking, I disagreed with him and demanded to see a doctor quickly. It turned out I had a large blood clot in my right lung which was spreading to the other side.(medical term is Pulmonary Embolism).
A pulmonary embolism is one of the large causes of sudden death, my sister died of this a few years ago, she literally dropped dead.If I had waited for an ambulance I would not be typing this now.
Am now on daily blood thinners and thank The Lord above I was saved
It is a sorry state that you have to rely on your intuition to save your own life now. If I had not been aware of the implications of my symptoms it would have ben, as I have already said, a great deal worse.

18 hours overnight, waiting for a bed after husband's stroke.

Don’t wish to be facetious but at least you have an A and E dept to go to!!! They have closed ours overnight at our local hospital from 6.30pm to 8.00 am, so you can only have an emergency during the day time!

A few years ago I was staying with my daughter and I got taken into hospital in an ambulance after she found me unconscious and choking on my tongue.
The paramedics arrived and stood me up and I promptly passed out again. I was feeling dreadful, bathed in sweat and absolutely convinced I was dying. They put me in a chair and carried me downstairs to the ambulance.
This was the first time I had been in an ambulance. At the hospital the lovely staff divided us through urgent and not so urgent.
My daughter arrived to be with me and it took about 14 hours for it to be decided that I could go home. In that time I listened, from the little curtained area I was in, to staff being abused by drunks and drug takers. It was a real eye opener for me.
I don't know how they do it.
ps One of my daughter's neighbours saw me being put in the ambulance and told me afterwards that I looked so awful she didn't expect me to be coming back !!

I haven't had to wait that long in A&E, but my GS had to wait 9 hours with a fractured foot. Recently my husband suffered extreme dizziness and could not stand. He has an underlying heart problem so I called for an ambulance - which (unsurprisingly) never came. My husband's dizziness lasted for 6 hours and he was vomiting. Very. Worrying time and made me realise that if any of us are taken ill in the future, we cannot necessarily be assured of help.

Yes it exists, I work in it. The Tories are running it into the ground though. They want it to fail. The long waits, lack of staff, all that's wrong with it is down to them, not the people working within it.

Similar thing but not A&E. My daughter 32 weeks pregnant had a routine scan at 9.15 am told she had a leak in waters needed further tests. Sat in waiting room whilst test done, said she needed to stay in for night. Got a bed at 10.50 pm
Had to have emergency c section next day told at 10am had section at 11.25 pm Thankfully mum and baby fine

I live in Ireland and that sounds quick lol

I think the clue is in the name, Accident & Emergency, you never know what's happening behind the scenes, probably people a lot worse off than you.

We've always had long frustrating waits in A&E despite only going when absolutely necessary, eg doctor advised and either phoned ahead or wrote note and this is over a period of 30-40 years, so it can't just be about recent issues. Hasn't made any difference whether it's a young child or an adult either.