And in case you are worried, the thumb is healing, not infected, and absolutely fine. Although it's bloody hard to do anything when you are minus the use of your dominant thumb.

Once. Had a bad allergic reaction.

Twice - with a tooth abscess when I woke the other half by moaning too loudly in my sleep, and as a child with an allergic reaction to gnat bites (I still get that, but not as bad now). It was a Saturday evening when my Mum spotted them so she could be forgiven :)
My brother has (to my knowledge) also only been twice, with a gashed knee when he fell off his bike and when he was mugged in the street.
No kids myself, but my friend has a sporty son who was into skateboarding and bmx bikes - she seemed to live at A&E...

I can only remember going once as a kid. I broke my arm at school. The Headmaster (Bryn Newton-John - and that's name-dropping if you like) asked how I had done it.

"Playing football, Sir."

"Nasty rough game" was his response.

The school played rugby.

As a child I was a regular visitor with broken wrists, knee, cuts to my arm after going through a window, piece of coal from fighting (still lodged in my forehead) aged 5, concussion from football training. I was an active child always in mischief and it was generally the school that took me to the old cottage hospital and then A & E in later life.

Once as an adult following a RTA and another time when I collapsed and found myself in A & E. Having worked in A & E I have seen plenty of people who could have waited for their GP or sorted themselves out.

My son: twice. Once as a toddler with a very high temperature and once when he attended himself and I picked him up from there.

I've had almost twice as many surgeries than you've had trips to A&E, BW! Lucky to still be up and about, some days, I think.

That said, I've had the same doctor for most of the last 30 years. I don't go in for even a normal appointment unless absolutely necessary, and he's recognized that. But given all I've been through I think he understands.

As a child I think two or three times and probably the same again as an adult. More serious times as an adult.

I don't remember ever taking our daughters to A&E but they were 6 and 8 when we got them so maybe they'd been a lot already.

The elder one has been a fair few times since I think.....best one was the first time we left her in charge of the house for the weekend. We called her to say we were nearly home, she didn't answer but texted back to say she was in A&E and she'd clean up when she got home. We assumed there'd be copious amounts of blood everywhere but she just meant she hadn't washed the dishes. ;)

Having seen the video and read the story of the US woman pinned underneath the train, screaming in agony and begging people not to call an ambulance, I wouldn't want to go down the road of charging for A & E. I've spent about 40% of my time in the US over the last four years, and I haven't found a single thing we could adopt in the UK that would improve things.

Of course, that doesn't stop us trying, and we're certainly doing a good job when it comes to populism and obesity.

Patricia

Myself, three times (I'm 40) - once with a fractured wrist, once when I got hit by a van's wing mirror while walking along a small lane (popped my elbow out of place), and once with a dislocated shoulder.

My kids, twice a piece (they're 11 and nearly 8), both times with temperatures that wouldn't come down from over 40, despite Calpol etc. Tricky thing with the kids is that often the advice over the phone from e.g. 111 is very rapidly to bring them in; when that's what you're told it's sometimes hard to hold against it, if you see what I mean. Anything that could conceivably be meningitis and it all gets a bit earnest. :)

I've never been to A&E on my own account. Elder son, as a toddler, put a small, perfectly round stone up his nose and we couldn't get it out. They didn't find it very easy at A&E either. Many years later, he shut his thumb in a safe and was in agony, so I drove him over to the hospital. They refused to treat him but the next day, a nurse at the doctor's surgery pierced the nail to relieve the pressure.

Ronan broke his leg, so a trip to A&E was justified. Eloise, never, I don't think, nor Russell. Her son broke his collar bone falling out of bed when he was staying with us five years ago. Tim had a serious seizure in London last November, we were already in a taxi and diverted to St Thomas's. I thought he'd died at one point, so that's thoroughly justified.

My poor mum dislocated her hip eight times and each one necessitated an emergency hospital visit. My sister, once following a car accident when she was 14 and she was admitted as a serious burns patient at the age of 21. A grandchild knocked a tooth out and another one had a burst appendix. But we're a healthy lot on the whole and not wildly accident prone.

Ah, yes, A&E. Over the years I have to confess I've had to know the way there a few times, although I can't think of an occasion that wasn't warranted. As a child I had a propensity for getting into scrapes that has only reduced in frequency over the ageing process.

The most recent was actually last Sunday. Hacking at an ex-neighbours goji bush that was trying to overtake a path. I got bit by a thorn, and thought no more of it except to note that it had broken off and would need digging out later.

3 hours later, when I dug it out of the first joint of the third finger, the finger was incredibly swollen, stiff and painful. I hied me to A&E, there to receive antibiotics.

I think I went once as a child. One of my children went twice as a child and one has never been. Children are mid and late teens.

I've been once as a child and that was because I had broken my foot on a Saturday morning and the emergency room was the only place open that could do an x-ray and a cast (we waited until evening, thinking it was just a bad sprain.) Although I had plenty of childhood injuries that would have sent my city playmates to the emergency room, both my parents grew up on farms, far from doctors or hospitals, and knew enough first aid to either deal with it on the spot or know that it could wait for a regular doctor's office visit.

I've been to emergency twice as an adult, but that was only because my employer made me go there for an on-the-job incident.

No kids of my own, but I have taken one to emergency when the parent was unable to do it (there was a lot of blood and the mom fainted.)

I don't think charging for A&E would change anything. It's incredibly expensive to go to the emergency room in the US, but that doesn't stop people here from going there for insignificant things.