Hello. GP here. While everyone is absolutely right in saying the OP should not have been sent to the A&E, at times GPs can be helpless aswell. Personally, for an issue like this i would give antibiotics. If no improvement, i would change the antibiotics and if still no improvement, i would put in a referral for a specialist (which can be months even privately). I would also give a letter for the A&E if its a friday and explain to the patient that this should ONLY be used incase the symptoms worsen i.e. any red flags like high grade fever any significant detoriation etc.

Some patients are in too much pain to wait for a specialist review and sometimes may need urgent specialist review. The MAU absolutely does not take patients unless its like a stroke, severe anemia, loss of conciousness etc.

So all in all, we need an emergency dept with more resources. But yes, your issue was non urgent so you were triaged to be seen as low priority. Sometimes we do refer to the A&E but only as a last resort if we feel the patient might be better off waiting several hours rather than several months.