What the public (sorry some of the....) don't seem to grasp is the triage system. It doesn't matter how you arrive at hospital, you will receive your treatment in order of its seriousness. I was booking in something trivial and non-life threatening just the other day only to find a guy who has just arrived by bus, the colour of this background, clutching his chest and patiently standing in a queue suffering from chest pain that was radiating into his left arm and jaw that he has had for the last hour. He was spotted at the same time as me by the receptionist, who politely asked everyone to wait while she fast bleeped the chest pain nurse, once they had got him stable he was told off (in a nice way obviously the guy was having a raging MI) for not calling an ambulance! He still got some nasty looks from some people that saw him only as jumping the queue, but that is how triage is meant to work. Incidentally he is fine now after I ended up transferring him for an angiogram/plasty and as for those that thought he was queue jumping, I don't really care, two of them could have gone to their GP, but thought it would be quicker coming to A&E as they couldn't get an appointment till the next day (which in my experience is extremely fast!)