Would it be stupid to go to A&E for an ear infection?

And ‘imaging’ (CT or MRI scans) are one of the ways to diagnose meningoencephalitis. Not sure why my last comment was downvoted so much, when it just reflected the reality of the world we live in—and everyone knows that, unless you’re willing to stick your head in the sand. When you’re rich, you can refer yourself for annual full body MRI scans, and use loads of other diagnostic tools just for prevention/spotting early signs of diseases. This isn’t exactly a secret—there are entire YouTube channels and newspaper articles dedicated longevity/early disease prevention, but it’s something that you can’t really get on the NHS. It’s currently a weekend, and just after the Christmas period, but I could get an MRI scan next Tuesday, if I wanted to. You often can get a scan in the same week, or the following day. The NHS is good for treatments, but it’s the testing/diagnosis stage that people often struggle with (people often don’t even get there). Quite frankly, it’s expensive to do, and not all people will have something medically urgent, so NHS doctors typically have to be prudent and think about who is likely to have what before referring them for further tests, etc. Again, this is just a fact of life. This is why we get stories of of life-threatening diseases being missed in young people (which is happening far more often these days), because the patients’ age means it doesn’t fit into the historical statistics of what people are “likely” to have, so they don’t even get tested. I had to pay for a few tests myself, because I have relatives who passed away early from various forms of cancer, and the NHS wouldn’t do these tests on someone my age (despite my family history). Some of my relatives live in other countries, and interestingly, they start some of these tests a decade or so earlier than the U.K. Now, if you’re wealthy enough but not uber-wealthy to go private all the way through, you could get tests and scans done privately, and if something is spotted on them, you can then arm yourself with that information, go down the NHS route, and be treated faster. This happens more frequently than you think, e.g., diagnosing neurodevelopmental disorders, where NHS waiting lists are incredibly long.