A Kent GP says due to long waiting times and overcrowding in A&E departments have left many patients fearful of seeking urgent hospital treatment.
This comes as new figures show that 2,446 emergency patients that needed to be admitted to a hospital in Kent last month had to wait at least 12 hours.
We spoke to the public outside the emergency department at Medway Maritime to find out their experiences...
This comes as new figures show that 2,446 emergency patients that needed to be admitted to a hospital in Kent last month had to wait at least 12 hours.
We spoke to the public outside the emergency department at Medway Maritime to find out their experiences...
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TVTranscript
00:00Generally, I think they've been getting better. I think I've been in and out of hospital myself quite a bit over the years.
00:07Certainly the most recent experience I've had, I was in and out very quickly.
00:11That was a couple of weeks ago. And yeah, I think they are improving. I think they are pretty much improving.
00:16Brilliant. They're brilliant. The staff is brilliant.
00:20I understand they're getting better, much better.
00:23I myself experienced it a few weeks ago and I went through very quickly, I have to say.
00:28The last time I went, I was there for quite a bit. I was almost there for, I think, six hours.
00:33And it was like one hour to see one person each. So it was a bit long.
00:38We can't be fearful because that's the only place you can go.
00:41And they are busy. They do their utmost, I'm sure.
00:45You know, and you see the staff running about.
00:48You know, there's no one standing or sitting or, to my knowledge, and what I saw when I was in there.
00:54So, no, I wouldn't be fearful at all.
00:56I think it's getting worse, actually. Yeah, definitely worse.
01:00Because the GPs are sending you from the surgery straight to A&E.
01:04And there's just, it seems like every GP is doing that now.
01:08I can understand why somebody would not want to go to the NHS because of the wait times.
01:12And I can also understand why somebody may want to go towards a more private route of healthcare.
01:16Because my mum has gone to that route herself and it was a lot more smoother in terms of what happened.
01:23Little grandson was there a couple of weeks ago and I think it was roughly about seven hours.
01:27And he's only six. So it's quite a long wait, really.
01:30We had a traumatic experience last year and we had to wait a while to do with my mum.
01:35And we were waiting hours and, yeah, it wasn't great.
01:39Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do because the NHS staff, they're all understaffed.
01:45So there's not really anything you can do.
01:46However, something needs to be done higher up, you know, above our pay grades.
02:02And you can also remember this update.