“Don’t be an A&E Turkey this Christmas!” say NHS emergency teams

Bizarre Choose Well Christmas stories – Turkey Tales

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As the party season gets under way, the NHS has launched two festive funny films encouraging sensible use of A&E – and sensible drinking.

Noorul Choudhury - former contender on BBC1’s The Apprentice - stars as an increasingly-aggravated businessman forced to listen as a woman lists the drink-related injuries ailing others in the waiting room. Despite her disgust at their excesses, she sees nothing wrong with expecting doctors to perform the “public service” of cutting up her oversized frozen turkey using their powerful clinical saws.

In the second video, friends of young man-about-town Rick are enjoying a drinking game in the cafe, but it is only when Rick himself arrives that you see they are actually in an A&E waiting room. The drinking game has already gone wrong for him – and doctors can only advise him to wait until the black marker pen on his forehead wears off. All of the characters’ stories are based on real-life cases.

Paramedics and A&E staff will face their busiest time of the year over the next two weeks. Around 40 per cent of all A&E attendances are for alcohol-related injuries and illnesses. And at Christmas, alcohol-related A&E attendances increase dramatically.

Festive parties make the last Friday night before Christmas notorious as the busiest shift of the year for 999 teams. This year, Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, meaning hospitals and ambulance services are preparing for two of these “Mad Fridays”, on both 16 and 23 December.

As the videos show, drink-related injuries can often raise a smile, but they are no joke to those who suffer them. Those featured in the videos include a woman whose attempts to photocopy her behind have ended in disaster, and a man who has had a nasty fall while drunkenly finding his way home.

Although avoidable, the injuries these characters have suffered do require urgent attention at hospital. But across England, as many as a quarter of all patients who visit A&E should be treated by their pharmacist or GP instead, or do not need any form of medical intervention at all. These unnecessary attendances pile even more pressure on 999 teams.