Using the information from The College of Emergency Medicine survey
into UK Accident and Emergency departments, let’s look at the commonly held
view that people are wasting Doctors time at A and E’s with trivial problems.
Here are the Triage categories;
1 Immediate 1 %
2 Very Urgent 9%
3 Urgent 38 %
4 Standard 47%
5 Non urgent 5%
So, 48% are urgent or worse – that’s nearly half.
I’m not sure what standard means but I suspect that while it
may not be urgent it could be pretty unpleasant – say a sprained ankle where
the reason you attend is not urgent but you need an X-Ray to check it isn’t
broken. Someone faints, then they wake up and are well by the time they get to
A and E. - it stops being urgent but could be very serious….or not. It needs to
be checked out.
Only 5 % are ‘non urgent’ and probably didn’t need to be
there, which is not what you hear from the press, the Health Minister or the
professionals.
Here are some other figures for another group; do you think
this is the elderly?
1 Immediate 2%
2 Very Urgent 8%
3 Urgent 19%
4 Standard 65%
5 Non urgent
6%
Here, there are a few more non urgents, a lot more standards
and only 29% urgent or worse compared with 48% as a whole. Who are they?
It’s Paediatrics, worried parents bringing little kids in.
Even on these figures you couldn’t say they were timewasters – you would say
better safe than sorry.
The 5% or 6% ‘non-urgents’ could be diverted by an efficient
system of Triage: which is where an experienced Nurse sees all attenders
immediately and gauges the urgency of their needs – which includes sending away
those who don’t need Hospital treatment.
I think everybody from the Health Minister down to staff is
looking to blame patients instead of the real problems of bad organisation,
lack of resources, lack of staff and bad management. Now we have some figures
to prove it.
95 % of people attending A and E have every right to be
there.
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
helpmesortoutthenhs.blogspot.com
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