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Just got off the phone with my mother. My father had a fall at home yesterday evening after a few months problems with his legs. My mother called the emergency services and they advised as it wasn’t life threatening they would be there in around 60 minutes. Eight hours later they eventually turned up to take him to hospital after spending the night on the floor not being able to sleep because he was in such pain and not able to get up. Is this normal service in the UK these days? Shropshire Ambulance Service for reference. I’m personally livid about the situation.
Acceptable? No, not at all.
Massively underfunded and under-resourced? Yes.
Ambulances will always go to the priority, one life or death situation for them will be a couple of hours minimum. You can be really unlucky as you've found, especially in the current situation with sickness levels and health staff isolations etc.
Hope he's okay.
Not life threatening and need to go to A&E, just get their yourself via car, taxi etc,.
Don't be angry with the service. Instead, be angry with the political system that made this happen.
It can only happen when there are not enough crewed vehicles available to do the pick ups. Having been drafted in from outside to support an ambulance service last year, I have a pretty clear view of how this awful situation of resourcing plays out and how the accident at home will have been forced down the lists by those in a worse situation.
I feel for the patient.
Guy I ride with is a Paramedic, his region (East Anglia) has been on highest load alert level for days on end - they system is in complete melt down. No space in hospitals to unload patients so whole system backs right up. Plus loads more calls for Ambulances. Loads of people early discharged from wards to make space then re-charged within 24 hours as they've relapsed at home. Was in the paper yesterday that one hospital had an 8 hour unloading wait for ambulances!
Main issue in the SE is we've been building 10,000s of houses year in year out but not spent a penny increasing hospital capacity. Add Brexit related exodus of EU nurses. Add Covid disruption on top and the system can't cope with demand.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58161914
Read this article yesterday, Welsh ambulance crew only able to attend two patients all shift due to queueing for a bed to be freed at hospitals, people waiting hours after calling 999.
There is a huge issue of crews having to isolate, that factored in with summer holidays means that most trusts are on critical staffing levels and they have to prioritise. Its a shame for your Dad and you are right to be annoyed.
For a top priority response? No. 8 mins is still the target.
For a non emergency fall-call, you’ll be back of the line I’m afraid.
I think you need to draw a much clearer distinction between acceptable and desirable.
First and foremost the ambulance services' responsibility is to save lives. I'm afraid that, so long as there are people with life threatening emergencies in the queue your father (with non life threatening problem) having to wait isn't just acceptable, it's necessary, it isn't however desirable.
OTOH there are likely better options for dealing with a non blue light emergency than calling an ambulance.
Another reason not to vote Tory.
It's situations like this that make me really appreciate taxi services
As able bodied people - likely 99% on this forum with cars or living with someone that has a car - we probably forget that they are even a thing. But I've always seen them as an essential public service.
Eg in this scenario, you know it's not life threatening (I realise, in very marginal cases it could be!) you can dial a number and have a 'professional' transport provider arrive at your door probably sooner than 8 minutes, and take you straight to A+E
Not it’s not acceptable. However, ambulance services are seeing demand this summer way beyond what they see even in winter. It’s not helped by the pandemic, admissions increasing again, staff having to isolate due to contact or testing positive. The knock of effect of hospital having staffing issues too means ambulances queue up. That’s before we ever get to the a certain vote leading to staff not being able to work here or even be interested in applying
This means low priority call get put back and back
You have the right to complain to the patient experience team who will give you some feedback.
However, the public can also help by thinking do I need an ambulance, can I get their myself, do I need an Emergency department, will a minor injury or pharmacy do.
Hope your father is recovering well.
given the size of the current tory majority. the state of the NHS is acceptable for the majority of people.
until they actually need it of course...
This is the reality of tory cuts, breexit and covid making a perfect storm. 999 calls are triaged and a no obvious injury fall will be a lower priority than most callouts so you keep on ending up at the back of the queue
Are you parents know to social services? They should have a falls team and an emergency call service for dealing with this sort of situation
As an aside my tory voting bexiteer relative who thinks Ress Mogg is fabulous was complaining about an ambulance wait in similar circumstances. I took great delight in telling her she was in no position to complain about NHS issues as she voted for a man who wants to end the NHS and turn it to insurance - and the party she votes for his responsible for the issues she faced. It did not go down well
A Taxi driver will not get someone off the floor
Acceptable? No, not at all.
Massively underfunded and under-resourced? Yes.
This
Don’t be angry with the service. Instead, be angry with the political system that made this happen.
And this. Had a barney with my Tory voting parents a while back when their friend had had a long delay getting treatment. The delays are a symptom, not the cause.
Yes, you should've called a taxi, then your elderly mother could have slung your immobilised father over her shoulder and flung him on the back of the cab and followed them down to the hospital on her skateboard.
FFS.
But yeah, these resources need investment in equipment and personnel, the current gov aren't going to do that anytime soon
A Taxi driver will not get someone off the floor
No, but the vast majority of people will be able to summon help in such a situation. As rightly said above, it's not really an emergency situation, as crass as that sounds. It would be an uncomfortable journey in a taxi versus an uncomfortable night on the floor, no choice for me really.
I've only had one experience of the Welsh Ambulance Service in the last decade and they were, by pure chance, at my parent's house within 3 minutes for a genuine life-or-death situation but what shocked me was that the crew said that the next nearest ambulance to them available was over an hour away! If they hadn't had an issue with their ambulance that made them wait at their old station while they rectified it and been just about to go on their 6 hour rest period but had glanced on their computer and seen the call was under a mile away (they would have passed on it if it was further away) then my dad would in all probability be dead now.
It's all to do with cuts and the closing of lots of smaller Ambulance stations, especially in rural areas. There's also the closure of various A&E departments meaning that the ambulances have to travel further to drop a patient off and then join the queue at the now more busy hospital.
Every time I saw Johnson and co clapping for the NHS I went into a proper rage. The NHS may well be devolved here in Wales but it's whoever is in Westminster who controls how much of a budget we have to play with. It's the reason we spend less per head than England, our pot is smaller despite having lots of legacy issues from the coal mines in out elderly.
So no, an 8 hour wait is not acceptable but it is the reality when the NHS is treated as a political football, taken for granted, underfunded and assumed it will always be there.
I dunno, whilst an old person on a floor might not be an emergency, an old person left on a floor all night is potentially a very dangerous situation.
Acute hospital services are full of elderly people who've been found on the floor, some are in a very bad way with hypothermia, rhabdomyolysis, notwithstanding the issue that caused them to fall in the first place - very often a medical problem like a pneumonia etc.
So yeah, I'd say that was unacceptable. But sadly not surprising.
I had this wake-up call a few years ago whilst assisting an elderly gentleman who had tripped over on a zebra crossing and culdnt get up - I suspected broken bones/pelvis.
Along with a few other members of the public we did our civic duty and assessed the situation, worked through the first aid usuals, comforted the gent and importantly directed the traffic around him as he was lying in the road.
An ambulance was called of course, and contrary to my expectations did not turn up in minutes - it was multiple hours later.
I never really thought about it much before then. I made a number of calls to the 999 in the meantime, updating and giving info, and they basically, (and quite rightly) put it down as
"Is he dying right now? No? well other people are. Sorry"
Which I think is entirely fair enough really.
“Is he dying right now? No? well other people are. Sorry”
Which I think is entirely fair enough really.
But you're talking about allocation of a finite insufficient resource. And in that situation, I would agree with your conclusions. But what if we as a society decided that that level of service was not good enough? And instead allocated some money to pay for extra ambulances and the workers to run them? At the same time, we could improve our underfunded healthcare sector so that ambulances can drop people off in EDs ready to accept them!
When I'm 80, I don't want to be holding up traffic lying in the road for 8 hours, please.
they advised as it wasn’t life threatening they would be there in around 60 minutes. Eight hours later ....
That for me is the problem, there's a huge difference between 60 minutes and 8 hours. I have no idea if operational issues made it impossible to give a more precise estimation but it is obviously unhelpful to be so unprepared for the extended wait.
If calling a taxi is to be considered then surely people need to be better informed with regards to the likely waiting times. Also other considerations can be taken onboard, eg, call a relative, bring a mattress down from upstairs, etc
Look at it from a different view, if your father was having a heart attack or was at risk from a life threatening injury, would you accept that they went to someone who wasn't in immediate danger of dying because they called first?
Whilst not acceptable it is the reality of a struggling service, could your mother have phoned you for help to pop round and try and get him up, whilst i realise you probably wanted him checking over before standing him up this would have stopped him laying on the floor in discomfort. did he take any paracetemol or ibuprofen? this will be the first question the crew will ask.
The paramedics can only do one job at a time and unfortunately are in the most dire situation with volumes of calls etc that they could be right now.
For reference my wifes a paramedic so i hear first hand some of the horror stories.
I dunno, whilst an old person on a floor might not be an emergency, an old person left on a floor all night is potentially a very dangerous situation.
Initially it’s not for a witness mechanical fall, that changes over the time they’ve been on the floor. Unfortunately the demand for the ambulances doesn’t, so sadly at times they keep waiting.
No I completely understand how these things happen. My point was that spending a night on a floor is not a benign discomfort for an elderly person, something that perhaps non-medical people don't fully appreciate.
What we have now is of our own making.
Brexit, the people voted for it.
Tories, the people voted for them.
With the exception of the few, tj, drac, many of us on here work for organisations who are not about the greater good or helping each other but more about bottom lines (I am talking about me too).
Overpopulation, didn't happen without people.
People calling ambulences for unnecessary reasons.
The real problem here is the people.
Would I want my Mum or her 80 year old partner waiting 8 hours for an ambulence, no, can I see it happening at some point, yes, how did they vote ... please see above.
We went out at 5am the other day to assist the ambulance to gain entry on a call that had gone through the lunchtime the day before from a doctor, its not great but it is what it is, underfunded and continuing cuts plus massive misuse when not needed by many tbh, we've resorted to taking casualties in the back of fire engines if desperate at our jobs as we've had to wait so long sometimes, it's not the ambulance services fault it's the government, just as we used to get an appliance to a house fire within 5 mins this is no longer a thing as to enable the cuts they wanted they just got rid of attendance times it's the same all over the country in anything the government have a hand in
But people keep voting them in, not that the opposition is any bloody different, self serving con artists the lot of them
Let's be honest, it's not long before private insurance companies just launch their own (widespread - key word here) private emergency ambulances. There are PLENTY of people in the country who can afford say 5 grand a year for the cover for their family.
It'll very, very rapidly become two tier emergency services
I wonder idly what difference, say, £350m a week to the NHS might make. Maybe we could import a few paramedics, nurses, drivers and doctors from our neighbours in Europe too? I'm surprised no-one's thought of that before.
I used to take 111/999 calls. Thanks to funding cuts and the sly privatisation of community services people are finding it very difficult to gets doctors etc appointments. Some are then calling 111/999, or turning up at their local ED, they know how to play the system and what to say to the call takers to get an ambo call out. You can imagine the type of demanding selfish people they are.
I don’t know what the answer is (aside from getting rid of the Tories), you could have a thousand more ambulances and crew, but if they’re all queued up waiting outside ED then they’re no use. We need to reduce the amount of unnecessary calls into 999 and go on from there
If only Jeremy had been voted in.
Swoon.
If only Jeremy had been voted in.
Yes, Labour opting out any chance of winning an election for a generation or more was an unusual strategic choice. I suspect we're stuck with the Tories for a good few decades more.
My mum had to wait 3 1/2 hours last week after having a fall.
Not great but feel for the ambulance workers too who not only are under resourced but are increasingly having to suffer abuse, threatening behaviour and violence as a consequence.
The Tories promised to build 40 new hospitals at the last election...oh no wait a minute, that's just another thing they lied to the British public about. NHS doctors and staff were vocally calling out, pleading for change on the run up to the last election. The public proved themselves yet again to be too short sighted to listen.
I learned a valuable lesson whilst lying at a (relatively) remote roadside with an unrideable bike beside me, a broken collarbone and some considerable road-rash. I was so far down the list of priorities that they eventually just said there was no ambulance coming, find your own way to a hospital.
The fact that I (eventually) managed to do so was probably proof that the operators made the right call, but it gave me a bit of a fright nonetheless.
My 80 year old next door neighbour fell into the road after tripping off a kerb.
Luckily, a passer by stopped and knocked on our door. When we went round to where he was (30 yards around the corner), he was literally taking up one side of the road, and couldn't get up. Ambulance was called, a passing police car stopped and helped direct traffic, and also repeatedly called to ask where the ambulance was
He lay there for almost 2 hours.
He had a broken hip
Just remember this is deliberate policy from the tories. The aim is to make the NHS appear unsustainable
For a non emergency fall-call, you’ll be back of the line I’m afraid.
It's not a line like you might be imagining either. If he was assessed as category 3 (I think it's 1,2,3, it's been a while). Then he'll get sent the next available ambulance, as long as there isn't a 1 or 2 outstanding in the system. It might be 8 minutes if it's quiet. It might be 8 hours if it's not.
So if they can't clear the waiting list for 1's then no one else gets an ambulance, however long they've been waiting.
It's not uncommon for the ambulances to get almost to the job, then get redirected as a more urgent case comes up.
I don't envy anyone who needs an ambulance at the moment, and I certainly don't envy the paramedics and all the other support professionals who do a lot of the work in the background.
A Sad sign of the times that as far as I am concerned. Responsibility lies front and central with government policy.
which currently seems to be "don't get ill, and don't be poor".
🙁
I've often wondered and I really should apologise as it's a complete diversion but I find my self considering it again.
Is tory blaming/bashing the STW version of doing a Godwin?
Godwin's Law isn't really applicable here because the conversation doesn't have to be going on for a long period to arrive at the conclusion. Instead the implications of Tory policy on healthcare are apparent from the outset.
The underfunding of the NHS is very complex and multi faceted.
Waste and poor resource allocation and poor planning are all factors.
The conservatives 'privatisation by stealth' and not so secret policies of 'contracts for the boys', I fear are the most important of several very big issues we face with public health care.
Just remember this is deliberate policy from the tories. The aim is to make the NHS appear unsustainable
...mmm I'm not sure your conspiracy theory is true - partly because I don't believe they are (a) that cohesive a party to have one genuine thought process on this (b) that keen to risk the only thing the UK public get more obsessed about that Diana - the NHS (c) most of the people in the tories who want to privatise the NHS aren't aiming to get rid of the NHS as a single payer - they just want their greedy share of that model by being party of the delivery mechanism. Similar situations happen in Scotland too (albeit anecdotally perhaps not so often) where decisions on health and social care are devolved - the Scot Gov could decide to fund extra ambulances, more out of hours GPs, A&E resource, social care support for people leaving hospital, simply be sacrificing some other part of the public service instead. Wales were one of the first places to have problems like this. The solution is not simply pumping more money into the NHS its diverting that money to places that would reduce demand - for all the Jeremy Hunt was lambasted as Health Secretary he rightly recognised that Health and Social Care can't be treated as two competing departments.
I’ve often wondered and I really should apologise as it’s a complete diversion but I find my self considering it again.
Is tory blaming/bashing the STW version of doing a Godwin?
I'm no tory - but it does seem to be going that way. It somehow ignores that the public that voted for the tories (or enough of them did, and not enough voted for opposition perhaps due to a lack of credible opposition) are the same idiots that clutter up A&E.
The underfunding of the NHS is very complex and multi faceted.
Waste and poor resource allocation and poor planning are all factors.
I worked in a cancer research department in St Thomas's hospital 30 years ago, thankfully not funded by the NHS, but even then your comment about poor resource allocation and poor planning was commonly used. Successive governments of all kinds haven't managed to fix it, just make it worse.
Godwin’s Law isn’t really applicable here
This thread is possibly one of the worst examples of my point but it seems that the only threads that make it so far as page 3 without mentioning them are ones introducing a new four legged designer lifestyle accessory.
The solution is not simply pumping more money into the NHS its diverting that money to places that
Carte blanche? No of course not.
Targeted structural reform is what's needed in particular management rather than service delivery.
It's a monumental project to rescue/restructure such a huge service provider, possibly unprecedented.
Hence the government wants to outsource bits of it and potentially all of it to avoid recompense.
Oh did company x fail after we paid them zillions of pounds? Not our problem, mate.
Slow privatisation is an easy way out.. Pass the responsibility on to a 3rd party supplier for this and that.
It's more about avoiding having to tackle the issue than actually tackling the issues.
Waste and poor resource allocation and poor planning are all factors.
Bit of a red herring, no organisation can be 100% efficient and every time anyone compares Health service efficiency they find the NHS is one of best performing Health services in terms of efficiency eg compared with Europe and the US. Overall ranking of 4th at the moment IIRC.
Our funding per head population is lower than a lot of comparable countries eg EU15 and US.
The UK spent £197 billion on healthcare in 2017, equating to £2,989 per person. This was slightly above the median expenditure for member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which was £2,913 per person, but below the median for the EU15¹, which was £3,663 per person (Figure 1).
I learned a valuable lesson whilst lying at a (relatively) remote roadside with an unrideable bike beside me, a broken collarbone and some considerable road-rash. I was so far down the list of priorities that they eventually just said there was no ambulance coming, find your own way to a hospital.
I think because most people aren't having to use the NHS services they are unaware the reality of the current state of them and think you will magically get an ambulance.
the chap down the road died about 3 weeks ago while waiting 7 hrs for an ambulance, welcome to shit hole britain.
it was funny that he was unresponsive when the first one arrived, they managed to get another 2 there in about 15 minutes.
calling 111/999, or turning up at their local ED, they know how to play the system and what to say to the call takers to get an ambo call out.
This!
I’ve a friend who is an A&E consultant, this is their take.
They’ve analysed their attendance (large provincial hospital) and their 10 most frequent visitors (so not hospitalised) come in between 40 and 130 times per year; costing alone over £150k. They had over 1100 patients who came more than 5 times in a year (again no hospitalisations) costing £2M. These people should have been seen in the community by GPs and social care. So a combination of huge underfunding and unavoidable resource wastage. If an ambulance can’t unload it can’t leave, if the A&E team are seeing people who should be seen by a GP (some are equally aware of how to summon an ambulance unnecessarily) then they can’t see the less urgent patient on the ambulance etc etc.
It is a multi factorial problem with no easy fix, so no hope with the morons we have in charge with their short term goals. My friend says it should be driven from the bottom up (ie by those who actually do it), but that medics when they become political usually become useless (political disease!).
If you want to complain about it meaningfully - do it at the ballot box
Waste and poor resource allocation and poor planning are all factors.
NHS ( even in england where admin costs are twice as high as Scotland) is actually a very efficient operation providing exceptional value for money
The problem is anyone can call 999 and if there's any vauge chance of an emergency they have to respond and probably have to attend.
So if some Karen calls 999 hyperventilating because she's spilled her tea and has a mild burn... Etc
So it goes back to government and underfunded education.. No one in thier right mind would call 999 if they stubbed thier toe on a chair and thier toenail has fallen off.
That's not a medical emergency! That's clean it up with some TCP and put a bandage on it.
It's a huge issue, lack of education, people clogging up the health services with minor ailments that are easily treatable at home.
The health services have to assume the worst though, and have to respond. Even if they send most home with a plaster and a lollypop and a sticker to say what a brave little soldier they have been.
Carte blanche? No of course not.
Targeted structural reform is what’s needed in particular management rather than service delivery.It’s a monumental project to rescue/restructure such a huge service provider, possibly unprecedented.
Hence the government wants to outsource bits of it and potentially all of it to avoid recompense.
No, even that's misdirecting the solution. Yes of course such a megascale organisation must have efficiency savings and multiple layers of bureaucratic management appears to be part of the problem - but some of that might actually be how you measure and therefore direct the savings.
The issue is thinking of the "NHS" in isolation. e.g. we have obesity issue - rather than chucking yet more cash at NHS divert some of that investment to prevention or early intervention; we have an ageing population with complex needs which makes discharge complex / slow, divert investment into getting people out of (and staying out of) hospital; we have people going to hospitals because they can't access GP (or believe they can't); we have people going to hospitals who should probably go to pharmacy, but don't pay pharmacists to be accessible outside M-S 9-5; we have people going to hospital because they are in police custody and need examined, but don't encourage funding for police in house medical staff etc.
Even within the NHS - the ambulance service is not necessarily understaffed IF they can drop off their patients and go to the next job (I'm sure Drac will probably disagree - perhaps I should say not as critically underfunded!); but the cost to the ambulance service of having staff stuck outside A&E (and probably extra staff handling the queue on the phones, and the management dealing with the complaints etc) isn't a cost for the (e.g.) hospital pharmacy budget that meant today's discharges couldn't leave quickly and blocked the beds so a&e couldn't clear their cubicles and ambulances had nowhere to leave their patients. It would be a very bold ambulance service manager that said - we'll give you a tiny bit of our budget if you can stop this happening...
Three years ago my mother fell down the stairs and cracked her head open, blood everywhere and she was out cold. Took the ambulance 90 minutes to get to her and she lives less than a 5 minute drive from the hospital and ambulance station.
Although the NHS is currently underfunded we have nothing to worry about as the Brexit dividend of 350 million a week for the NHS will sort out any funding problems.
@Drac or others in the know:
Do you ever send community first responders to your low priority cases to (a) potentially resolve a trivial issue and avoid taking to hospital (b) assess if actually its a stoic elderly person who should really be higher priority? I appreciate that their main purpose is to reduce first on scene time for the highest priority calls. Or can you directly request (out of hours) GP to attend your low priority cases that are stacked up - and assess?
I’m no tory – but it does seem to be going that way. It somehow ignores that the public that voted for the tories (or enough of them did, and not enough voted for opposition perhaps due to a lack of credible opposition) are the same idiots that clutter up A&E.
because no-one want to pay what we’d have to to get the NHS we think we have. Until they phone for an ambulance or try to get a referral.
anyway, a bit more clapping should speed up call out times right?
because no-one want to pay what we’d have to to get the NHS we think we have.
Not true. Multiple polls have shown people willing to pay more and the previous scots government was elected on a tax raising manifesto
Good point, but not enough do so here we are..
You have to remember that the UK voting system means the tories get in on a minority vote
Blame for this lies at one place only - tory central office. Its deliberate policy to run down the NHS
FFS we even had Gove bragging about sending his kids to A&E rather than the GP
Same question that is asked all the time, unfortunately we all now live longer, but not healthier, they have managed to increase life expectancy, but not in any healthy state, so the numbers of octogenarians and above has increased hugely, and with the cost of support, a lot are having to do things that they shouldn't at that age.
Same with obesity and several other illnesses/conditions, on the increase and at the end a high chance of a 999 call required at some point.
On any visit to A&E you always notice the triage service, hence why people mutter when some mum brings in their kid with a tummy ache or sprained ankle, last time i was in (for a broken collarbone and so on) there was a mum who had the sprained ankle kid, but on entry it was suspected broken ankle, even though the kid was walking on it and chasing his sister with that weird herr flick walk.
I did notice a lot of NHS adverts trying to educate people, especially with the misuse of 999 and A&E to try and assist in reducing the burden they have, not sure how you fix this without trying to reduce the burden as well as increase funding to the areas that require it most?
I’m no tory – but it does seem to be going that way. It somehow ignores that the public that voted for the tories
It also ignores the fact that in the last 24 years we have only had 4 years of Tory majority government, but apparently everything that is wrong is the fault of the Tories and no one else.
And it ignores the fact that Labour governments pissed billions of NHS money down the drain on PFI, and billions more on killing brown people with a funny religion in faraway distance lands.
But they weren't Tories so that's alright.
Back about 20 years ago worked for the NHS,quite a few of the ambo staff said they where sent out to meaningless jobs as a taxi service, passengers, sorry patients would tell the call centre they had chest pains to get a call out, so one crew plus van off the road, then got another job working with on call GP s at night, and guaranteed every night youd have people who could have rung a gp and gone to a surgery would ring up for a GP visit, think i actually called an ambo on 2 or 3 ocassions for emergency treatment.
Whats needed is more funding for out of hours services, and a mental health team on call that actually go out or visit patients in need, no need for an ambulance to be sent, add in more capacity and staffing at A and E departments for major injuries and trauma with beds available not one in one out as is current practice,
Only last week a freind was taken ill at night and had to wait 5.5 hr for an anbulance on the advice of her GP on call service over the phone, i didnt find out next day or would have taken her there.Finally there used to to be a term called Scoop and Run, where the patient was scooped up, stabilised in ambulance and taken to nearest hospital, but they cant happen now due to under capacity and bed blocking etc.REleasing ambo and c rew for next scoop and run.
BBC1, now. Or iPlayer later on. The new series of Ambulance is just starting.
Gives a good idea of how much pressure they're under (we filmed it Jan-March this year).
I really can't understand this thing where ambulances can't just drop the patient off and get on to the next job where the on-board paramedics could save, or prevent a downgrade in, a life.
A few years ago I remember a crew positively coaxing a mate into an ambulance after a tumble at Penmachno. Somebody had seen the fall and called 999. He was kidnapped and taken up to Bodelwyddan near Rhyl. It was a chilly day and all the ambulance crews were happy having a warm cuppa and chat for a few hours until their cargo was triaged and handed over.
"The health services have to assume the worst though, and have to respond. Even if they send most home with a plaster and a lollypop and a sticker to say what a brave little soldier they have been"
I don't know what it's done in the last couple of years but until quite recently the percentage of A&E attendances that led to a full on hospital admission was the highest it had ever been. So while there are inappropriate attendances, the 'plaster and lollipop' types are a small and shrinking group.
There's huge pressure for beds at the hospital I work at right now (London). Which is weird, because the number of Covid patients is high but holding steady- and nowhere near the level it was in the second wave (it's about two wards full including ITU, as opposed to every ward in the entire hospital). It's basically looking like so many people stopped themselves coming into hospital over the last 18 months that a lot of them are
a) all coming in at once now and are
b) twice as sick and therefore staying twice as long
I really can’t understand this thing where ambulances can’t just drop the patient off and get on to the next job
because there is no room in A&E and / or no staff to care for that person in A&E so they paramedics have to continue caring for them
Don’t be angry with the service. Instead, be angry with the political system that made this happen.
I’m more angry with voters who can’t see beyond their own immediate needs.
My Dad lives in Shropshire too, and needed a 999 ambulance transfer to A&E recently
He was on the verge of cardiac arrest, the ambulance came immediately, which took 30 mins given the rural location
At the moment it’s a perfect storm in Shropshire. Old people have stayed hidden inside through out COVID and not had their health issues dealt with and now they are all getting very sick, GP’s are still not inviting people in for appointments, the local hospital has been poorly managed for the last 10 yrs or so, so the infrastructure isn’t fit for purpose or the population it serves. Ambulance crews are left with no option but to take people to A&E as there are not the correct support services in place.
Shropshire is rural, low population density so ‘shouldn’t’ need a large ambulance service, but then the population is dispersed, rural and elderly
All means that A&E attendance is at record levels and it’s only the middle of the summer
Oh and then of course we can blame Labour for its poor management of the NHS, and the population for not wanting to pay more in taxes, and caring more about our own neighbours.
Its not labour to blame - the NHS improved hugely under the last labourr government even tho money was wasted on PFI.
Haing worked in healthcare since the 70s its totally obvious - tories run it down. labour try to repair the damage and last time around actually improved it
. I took great delight in telling her she was in no position to complain about NHS issues as she voted for a man who wants to end the NHS and turn it to insurance
They voted for Frank Field?
I've sat in a ward watching the Matron bollock nurses for the wrong socks whilst ignoring the undischarged patient waiting for his prescription so he can go home. Still there 8 hours later, resorted to sitting in the aisle so they couldn't ignore me the bed blocker
The problem isn't just funding it's the organisational culture
TJ - I don’t think it’s the conservatives to blame either, it’s the populations appetite to pay equitably to fund the service to the standard people want it to be.
as it stands currently I think all political parties see increasing taxes as political suicide, regardless of left or right politics
Apparently this was labours fault
funkydunc - it is 100%
they have deliberately run down both the NHS and support services so that the A&E depts are under huge pressure along with bed reductions
Its deliberate policy so they can claim the NHS is failing so it can be given to their pals
The problem isn’t just funding it’s the organisational culture
Nonsense shows how ;little you know about the health service. Most staff work well above and beyond the call and their job description
Oh - and that was not a "matron"
Just got off the phone with my mother. My father had a fall at home yesterday evening after a few months problems with his legs. My mother called the emergency services and they advised as it wasn’t life threatening they would be there in around 60 minutes. Eight hours later they eventually turned up to take him to hospital after spending the night on the floor not being able to sleep because he was in such pain and not able to get up. Is this normal service in the UK these days? Shropshire Ambulance Service for reference. I’m personally livid about the situation.
To get to the top of the list, tell 999:
1. Your dad has just overdosed on heroin and is down to 1 breath a minute and totally unresponsive.
2. Your dad is a pisshead and has fallen, cracked his head, is unconscious and unresponsive.
My dad was in exactly the same position last week. We pay for a response care package so he can be lifted but unfortunately that didn't work so they called an ambulance. 6 hours wait in a collapsed state THEN head to be taken to hospital in case he had caused kidney damage...Catch 22!
As someone else has posted, our NHS and Ambulance Service have been run down to below skeleton service levels. Read into this what you will but I can hear BJ reciting all the failures as he announces major new funding for the NHS from a major American backer.
And we all know how that ends.
Paging Kier Starmer. Anyone seen him?
This was in the news yesterday.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58186708
The soundbite was to the effect that radical decisions have to be made to "help out the NHS". It seems pretty obvious to me what will happen next - this is just the government softening us up.
I work with a guy who has had some major health issues over the past couple of years - he still continues to pay himself a rate below the minimum for NI contributions while having seemingly regular ct scans and visits to his consultant. So I'm afraid we get what we pay for, and what we vote for.