Having offered to help a local doctor with his computer problems, and mentioned my suspected fractured left hand, I received some insider advice.

• show up at casualty in the early morning when there will be loads of doctors and hardly any patients
• tell them you did it within the last week
• tell them you couldn’t get an appointment with GP
• say you’ve been taking pain killers but it kept you up at night

Although everybody I’ve spoken to agrees that an X-ray is the only sensible way forward, this is the only time I’ve had it spelled out how to actually get one in a timely fashion!

edit: I didn’t quite fib this much. I did show up in the morning, and got seen instantly - so a good tip there. Also you have to be careful as a “young” man to indicate that you didn’t get it by drunkenly punching your best mate in the face or similar. Said I did it just over a week ago, didn’t play up the pain angle, but did play up the affecting work, brushing teeth, etc. angle. Got an X-ray and there’s no fracture, so the answer is keep using it, put up with pain or take pain killers, and wait ages for it to get better…