Patients 'frightened' to go to hospital over lengthy ED waits

Senior GPs have told a Stormont committee that some sick patients are avoiding going to hospital because they are frightened of long waits at Northern Ireland's emergency departments (EDs).

Northern Ireland's hospitals have recently experienced significant issues with excessive waiting times, while paramedics have been forced to stay with patients stuck in queues of ambulances outside hospitals.

Dr Frances O'Hagan from the British Medical Association (BMA) said waiting times have caused issues for her practice patients.

She added that GPs sometimes advise people, some with serious symptoms, not to call an ambulance, but to make their own way to hospital.

"I live in Armagh, and the closest hospital is Craigavon or Daisy Hill," said Dr O'Hagan.

"We are saying to people - bundle them into the car, if they are elderly or they have chest... (complaints), because they will get there quicker."

Dr O'Hagan told MLAs on the health committee it is not the case people who arrive at the hospital in an ambulance will be prioritised for treatment.

"You will not. You will spend your time outside in the ambulance - through no fault of the ambulance staff or the ED staff," she said.

"They are working really, really hard. But if you want to get your person seen quicker, it is better to get them, however you can, to the hospital under your own steam."

Dr Ciaran Mullan from the BMA said he was coming across more patients who are reluctant to go to hospital, despite needing treatment.

He told MLAs: "The other thing that has crept in and was never the case is whenever you have been looking after somebody and they are becoming more acutely unwell and you decide that they need... urgent or emergency care, and we will get an answer to say: 'You're not sending me to the hospital, are you?'

"That is the reality of some of the acute access difficulties we are facing now, where somebody feels that they are frightened to go to the hospital."