On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 20:17, Andy Townsend <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 05/04/2020 16:36, Joseph Eisenberg wrote: > > Can someone confirm if "urgent_care" makes sense in British English, > > rather than "walk-in" or something else? > > > I'm English, and I would not know what "urgent_care" meant. After > reading the wiki page, it is unclear whether refers to designated > walk-in centres, or the "accident" end of "accident and emergency", or > any other healthcare providers that offer non-appointment access? > > "Urgent care" wasn't a term familiar to me, but I can make a guess based on my experiences with the NHS. There is emergency care for people who have had a heart attack or an accident with a chainsaw or whatever: call an ambulance to take you to A&E. A doctor can't sew your hand back on. There are minor injuries units. They can't handle anything like the full range of problems that an A&E can. But they can deal with things your doctor can't and that need fairly immediate treatment. Deep cut that needs sewing or superglueing shut (been there, done that, tried my local doctor first and was told by the receptionist to go to the minor injuries unit). Stuff like that. You can't wait a couple of days for an appointment but you don't need the full A&E treatment. I'd class those as urgent care. Not only do you not need an appointment, they don't have an appointments system (that I'm aware of). Then there are doctors. Usually they require appointments. They'll handle walk-ins that meet certain criteria for urgency, because of the Hippocratic Oath thing. Been there, done that, too. More than once. With the doctor's blessing: any time I'm in that condition, walk in. Sometimes they decide all they can do is stabilize you (or try to slow down the rate at which you're deteriorating) while an ambulance shows up to take you to A&E (been there, done that, a couple of months ago, had 12 days in hospital). That said, I'd be reluctant to tag any doctors' surgery as providing urgent care: it's something they do but they don't want people turning up with minor injuries, let alone those in need of emergency care. I'd say the only real use for this tag is minor injuries units. They don't really fit into the emergency category but it's useful to be able to find them in a hurry. These are places that don't just accept walk-ins, that's all they usually handle. -- Paul
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