Saturday Night Live

Years ago, in fact until very recently, Saturday Night Live probably meant a show from the London Palladium or a well known US TV show, not anymore. On Oct 1st Saturday Night on Radio 5 Live meant from a busy A&E Department at the Royal Edward Albert in Wigan. The Stephen Nolan show which transmits from 10pm Friday to Sunday inserted their man for comment and opinion real time.

Given the nature of our business I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to listen to the show to see what transpired - afterall this was what we are about and are trying to achieve - feedback and comment on NHS services and this promised to be straight from the horses mouth.

The show even inserted a reporter to Wigan town centre, I assume to interview drunks as they were being taken to A&E.

"I'm surprised" purred Nolan, his surprise wasn't that people were arriving at A&E but three at arrived with Cardiac Arrest within an hour. He reported live as one was taken from the Ambulance and being wheeled into A&E. "We're machines that can break down at anytime" and then "It's like a conveyor belt" Thankfully the Ward Sister interjected with the fact that getting three heart attack cases in such a short space of time was extremely rare.

However at this point Nolan raised possibly one of the best points of the entire show, some people arrive for an ingrowing toenail and resources are taken away from the treatment of higher importance cases to deal with more frivolous injuries or those that are self inflicted. We all buy into the NHS and want our bit out of it when we feel we need it.

A motorbike accident victim wished it was more like casualty - "You see 3 million doctors on casualty doing nothing" on being told he'd wouldn't be dealt with for 3 hours or so. "I wish I could be seen a bit quicker ... I just want to be seen" The reason for his wait of course, perhaps unknown to him, was that three more high priority heart attack victims were ahead of him in the queue.

Sadly just after this interaction, it was announced that the man wheeled from the Ambulance with a Cardiac Arrest had died. The Ward sister sounded genuinely choked and I suppose it brought home even more so the priorities the NHS faces. Treat a man whom had crashed his motorbike and was frustrated at being told he had a three hour wait or try to save a mans life?

Over 23 million people use A&E in the UK annually for varying reasons, sometimes sports injuries, but around 20% of cases involved alcohol in some way. The programme was on air until 1am and I didn't listen to it to the very end but it continued to interview patients, managers, staff and relatives of the people in that A&E, it confirmed several things, that I probably already knew: 1/ - I have always said at the emergency end of the NHS it can rarely be bettered. 2/ - Sometimes we have no idea whom might be ahead of us in the queue to be seen but we all think we are the most urgent priority that the NHS faces. Perhaps communication could be better at times to put us in our place a bit more.

But finally above all else at 3/ - We all want to have our say on the NHS so why don't we?

For the remainder of this week the show can be heard by visiting the Five Live Website or via a direct link here