[pendy]

Lettie is absolutely right. Time wasters cost the NHS a fortune. The long wait in A&E is more often than not down to them, as well. All patients have to be seen, no question, but so often they are there for no good reason, one of the main ones being that they can't be bothered to get themselves a GP, so when they are feeling off-colour, hungover, whatever, they turn up at A&E. Also, do try not to get injured or sick on a Saturday night, or your chances of getting thrown up on, or even assaulted, increase dramatically.

Last time I had to use our local A&E (bad asthma attack - no apologies there), the nursing staff were tearing their hair out dealing with the drunks and one chap who had had a headache since the day before (this was after midnight) and had no aspirin at home, so he called an ambulance!