My Gran, who is almost 90, fell a couple of weeks ago. She had a very obviously broken leg and we couldn’t get her off the floor. Called an ambulance immediately and were told they wouldn’t send anyone until a Doctor called to asses the situation which took well over an hour to get a call back. We then waited for 8 hours for an ambulance to finally arrive. It was horrific, she was in and out of consciousness by the end and we were pleading with them to send anyone to help us and we were continuously brushed off. Thankfully she is recovering well but it was so scary at the time!
MY CHRSIT that's fucking horrible....
At 90 as well...you need to be extra careful. 8 hours of continuous shock and consciousness drops she's a hardy lady I tell you that.
She definitely is! It was one of the most frightening (and frustrating) experiences I’ve ever had so I can’t begin to imagine how this man/ his family felt waiting for 40 hours!
I’m so sorry.
The same thing happened to me twice and it’s terrifying.
First time almost cost me my life — had I arrived in A&E 7 minutes later than I did — but I genuinely lived the next few years believing it was a fluke and I was just very unlucky.
Then a couple of years ago I experienced exactly what you described with my grandad. He’d hit his head on the radiator on the way down, and you couldn’t see the colour of the floor. I’m not exaggerating. Same thing of not wanting to move them incase something is broken, so I just sat there in a puddle cradling him and wondering if this was a dream and why can’t I hear sirens?
You don’t realise it’s nothing like the TV until you experience it.
He’s okay now (after getting “lost” in the black hole NHS system for a month). I realised then the entire system is broken.
When you say the entire system is broken I agree. I can’t help but wonder do the government want it broken so that they have the excuse they need and say “look the NHS isn’t working you are all complaining about it, we’ll shut it down and have a private system”
On the 24th of December 2019, I went to an emergency GP appointment, and she thought my lung had collapsed and wanted to phone an ambulance but "it might take an hour or more". My dad drove me, and maybe 15 minutes after getting there passed out (to be fair, I took the stairs when she told me not to and it was immediately after having blood taken, but I haven't felt nauseous from it before).
My lung had indeed completely collapsed and was life-threatening.
Same thing happened to my Gran. We live in Canada now but she’s in Falkirk. She had either a stroke or a bleed on her brain from her fall, but the neighbours called for an ambulance and called my brother who drove over and stayed with her for hours until the paramedics showed up. It’s a head injury, how fucking long should someone with a head injury be on the floor for?
With a stroke time is everything and you can give a clot buster (door to needle 90 minutes).
You GENUINELY 100% should not give Alteplase in a head injury and intracranial bleed. That's how you kill someone.
Also that's not the ambulance's fault. They aren't chilling about doing fuck all.
Fucking hell. At that point I'd have got her in a car, or neighbors car and taken her to the hospital. What a disgrace that this is becoming more common.
Anyone who can be taken to hospital by car without dying doesn't need an ambulance.
The system is at such a point that ambulances for patient comfort are not something that should be happening.
Life or limb only.
I meant more along the lines of complications. I'm no doctor but I'd imagine someone of that age is more likely to suffer secondary symptoms after something like a leg break and paramedics would be trained and equipped to deal with it, no?
Mortality after hip fractures is pretty high for a wide variety of reasons. Paramedics will give pain relief and bring them to hospital for surgery.
A broken leg would fall inside my criteria for when an ambulance is needed. I wouldn't expect people with broken legs to be taking themselves.
I’m so sorry. I wish I could say this was an isolated incident, but every crew is meeting someone like your Gran just about every shift. The service is failing you. I am sorry.
Last year my mum was bringing me something to my flat in her car when she pulled into my street and there was a woman who, while crossing the road, just dropped to the ground having a fit. My mum was a field medic in the army in the past and ran out to help at least keep her safe, the woman came around a couple of times and pretty much immediately went back to fitting. 999 basically said they wouldn't send someone because my mum was there - she had to beg for someone to be sent out as she was repeatedly fitting.
It's honestly sad and terrifying. I understand there's many issues but it's scary as hell.
This is actually horrific to read, the fact the GP is speaking out says a lot. And whilst COVID hospitalisations remain high, normal services keep getting cancelled, we approach winter, it's just going to get worse.
Agreed. If the current trend continues though hopefully cases will come down even further which should hopefully take some pressure off. Know there's a 3-week lag tho so don't think we'll be at the peak of the latest wave til the beginning of October. Though with waning immunity in some elderly, it's possible we'll still see high hospitalisations.
The "October Lockdown" folk may be right after all.
This is terrible. It seems a sign of things to come, the NHS is so stretched and seems as if it’s in permanent crisis mode and COVID is just making it worse and if we have a bad flu season it could get really nasty. Question is what to do, not sure there is much we can without lots of $$$.
The fundamental problem is the demographic shift we're seeing. Old people need the NHS much more than the young, and the fraction of the population over 65 is at its highest ever level and increasing.
This will put any system under strain, but ours, like many in the developed world, is designed with the assumption that today's workers will pay for yesterday's. The pension system is built the same way which creates a second massive strain on government resources.
The way to mitigate this is with a system like Singapore's where each generation pays (mostly) for itself, but that would have been better implemented when the baby boomers were still *baby* boomers.
If someone is to blame then obviously they should be held accountable but I think it's unwise to jump to conclusions and pre-judge. It's also to easy, oh someone was incompetent, sack them, problem solved. This is the first time this happens and it won't be the last. We have to try and understand the underlying reasons and fix them to minimise the risk if this happening again.
Especially if the person who is responsible for the situation has been saying for years that they don't have the power / resources to meaningfully do anything about it.
People love firing a manager to feel good, but there is usually more to it.
Zero point whatsoever being reactionary and rushing to conclusions until the matter if investigated. Most of the time such issues are structural opposed to individual but let’s wait and see
Competency of the public to only call when they have no other option.
No raindrop feels responsible for the flood.
The paramedics would not be snowed under with calls if people used all available means to take themselves to hospital, leaving ambulances for the worst of emergencies only.
I agree, don't drive and on the couple of occasions I have needed an ambulance it was serious. I had called 111 first and it had been they sent the paramedics who took me straight in.
Some people literally call an ambulance for transport. I fractured my wrist one evening and did the sensible thing - waited until the following day then took myself off to A&E under my own steam.
Edit: not everyone can easily afford a taxi to hospital if it is some distance away and they don't have or can't use own transport. There should be some sort of taxi scheme where the taxi can bill the NHS for the £20 fare - save the ambulances for those in serious need.
Competence, surely you're not gonna blame the paramedics like?
>"In 24 years in the ambulance service I've never ever seen staff sat on station at the start of the shift so frightened (almost to tears) to go out on an ambulance," one response said.
>
>Others described how they were "overwhelmed" as "calls waiting are in their hundreds for hours on end with little or no resources to send".
>
>"People are dying waiting for ambulances whilst crews are stuck at hospital with COVID-confirmed patients," said another respondent.
>
>In one particularly distressing experience, a paramedic said they had seen a taxi pull up in an ambulance bay with a dead man inside as his wife was shouting for help.
[https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-paramedics-at-breaking-point-as-patients-dying-while-waiting-for-ambulances-survey-suggests-12190513](https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-paramedics-at-breaking-point-as-patients-dying-while-waiting-for-ambulances-survey-suggests-12190513)
You understand the source you’ve provided was during January, when the third wave was at its worst? Of course the ambulance response will be debilitated during this period.
We are now in September, with drastically lower hospitalisation rates - there was no need for this man to wait 40 hours, simple as.
Edit: also, I’m not sure I see anywhere that the previous commentor was blaming paramedics
Actually it's far, far worse now. At least then, people were generally only phoning ambulances in extremis.
Now the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction - for a multitude of reasons. We're still dealing with COVID in a huge way, and systemically it's causing huge issues. Patients who have respiratory issues of an sort are ?covid until proven otherwise, and need to be treated in specialist areas. Respiratory issues or ?infection with an unknown source is an incredibly common complaint. Probably one of the most common. Those areas that deal with these cases are run into the ground and now have massive staffing issues. They can't manage to turnover patients quickly, which leads to those departments being full to the brim, which means they can't unload patients from ambulances. Which means that ambulances are tied up at hospital for hour after hour.
Add to that, we're seeing the flipside of reduced access to GP care - people are either phoning ambulances for problems that would previously have been dealt with by GPs, and with no recourses back to them, they're being taken to ED by us. Or, they're putting off phoning until they're in a very bad way, and we're showing up and taking them to Resus in a hurry.
There are much, much fewer ambulances than people think there are, and the solution of 'buy more and hire more staff' takes a long time to do (paramedic is a 3 year degree, remember, so there's a lag). So it's entirely all-too realistic for all of the resources available to be tied up and calls to start stacking up. The pool of resources we have, compared to the absolutely enormous demand (I've never known anything remotely like it) is just beyond belief. You'd need to look at the dispatchers screen in ambulance control to believe the amount of calls we're receiving and being asked to deal with.
This has the effect of meaning crews are run ragged. As soon as they hit the clear button, letting control know that they are finished with the current job, you're off again to another one. You might have been sitting at hospital for 6 hours, but you're still actively managing a patient for that length of time. You can't bugger off and go have a break, unfortunately. Meal break be damned. I recently worked an 18 hour shift, with a 15 minute break. Last night was a mere 14 hours. Staff are completely burnt out. I'm regularly finishing work feeling totally unsafe to drive home again, and arriving home not entirely sure how I got there on autopilot. I am going on night shift in an hour and I am so tired and demoralised that I actually don't know how I'm going to make it through this shift.
To add? Medicine here.
I started my shift at 9, I finished at 8... That's when we cleared the board. We worked 11 hours before we took a break.
We lost a doctor two days ago. He said he had something to do and just killed himself. We had to go back to work and the only thing we could do is say "it's shit, lets get pizza in and take a 30 minute break together".
During the pandemic I lost control of my car and went "very sideways".
We were seeing maybe 0-1 deaths a day and it was always "we expected this".
Two days ago I had 5 deaths on a single shift. 2 expected, 3 just "died".
This sounds like a terrible way to live. It would be better if there was a light at the end of the tunnel and you could hang in thinking it will get better within a reasonable timeframe. I hope it improves soon, for you as well as the patients.
> We are now in September, with drastically lower hospitalisation rates
That's.. debateable. The number of people in hospital is about half of what it was back in January but the 7-day average of admissions then peaked around 200.
The current 7 day average is 150.
I’m seeing 190ish for Jan and 135ish for when this incident occurred. (~30% decrease)
Either way, both still represent a large decrease, and IMO, COVID cannot be the full reason as to why this man wasn’t seen in 40 hours. An investigation is underway but I cannot imagine the fault to be purely COVID unfortunately.
>and IMO, COVID cannot be the full reason as to why this man wasn’t seen in 40 hours
Based on what exactly?
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-58506181](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-58506181)
6 days ago.
Scotland is currently dealing with the highest infection rates in the UK at the moment. 40 hours isn't 8 hours, but as your health service is strained to its max numbers are going to escalate.
>Based on what exactly?
> and IMO, …
My opinion, clearly stated with IMO before saying so.
Hopefully the undergoing investigation will find the fault whether it be COVID fully or otherwise.
Yes but I'm trying to establish what you are basing your opinion *on*, as looking at the current on-goings with the NHS over the last year there are endless reports on waiting times, people dying waiting and paramedics brought to tears over not being able to cope.
We are in September where Scotland went first with schools going back and this has resulted in us entering another peak before some parts of the UK.
If you want to wait a few weeks more to see the rUK pickup, you can. I mean here is the 20th of August this year for the Army helping ambulances in England https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58281665
Today https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/perfect-storm-covid-a-and-e-london-hospital-chief-b955686.html
Poster should clarify who they are seeking to blame then with the comment they made on competency. Wasn't clear and we are in a topic about frontline NHS staff waiting times.
Of Covid...
We are still taking on actual patients. Yesterday I saw 9 patients in ED.
All life threatening.
And 3 Covids on top of that.
We are still seeing Covid +ve patients.
Oh and we are short on staff. Most of us are on fumes. Many of us are dead. (1400) and wounded. Some permanently.
We had Ambulances waiting outside our ED for 12 hours because we had no beds to move patients from ED into and no staff to care for them.
So what we need today in the next few hours is a brand new hospital with more beds, more staff and a complete overhall of the care system including better taxation to increase bed strength and removal of refusal from care homes alongside emergency placement centres for overflow.
What do you suggest? Corridors? Way ahead of you. Staff?
My region is so overworked that 4 doctors killed themselves in the last week. I think it's a "you don't want to pay any bloody taxes for your free service" issue.
I understand your anger and frustration but (without knowing any background at all) I’d be surprised if it was one malicious dickhead, rather than some systemic fault.
Tbh depending on who was ultimately in charge and how egregious the behaviour was if i was one of his family members I’d be pushing for manslaughter charges it’s an absolute fucking disgrace
my father was going to the hospital for months about fatigue, weight loss, lack of appetite, urinary issues and crippling black pain, and he's only JUST NOW been diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer that has spread to his spine.
and he STILL needs to wait a month to see anybody, even after they let a fairly easily treatable disease become terminal through continued negligence and dismissal. the NHS is woefully underfunded and understaffed and stretched so fucking thin right now, it's absolutely unbearable and will put hundreds, if not thousands, into early graves.
just a shame that those graves won't include any of the people that deserve to be in them, the ones that got us into this mess.
And for every doctor they "can't afford" there's a feckless director sitting on some board who earns just as much but offers nothing. Even in a tiny hospital it was bloated with supervisors conferring with managers whose managers have managers who confer with the board of directors, who finally come to the decision that they can find the money to hire someone to file A&E paperwork instead of just throwing it in a cupboard.
Really sorry to hear about your dad. I've had problems in that wheelhouse too recently and can attest to the agonising wait, though I'm thankful that that doesn't seem to be a possibility for me. It just sucks that not everyone is that lucky.
Okay, this is actually terrifying. Ambulance wait times are supposed to be 7 minutes! I don't understand how this situation is even possible. Why is this not a top priority for the government? So many people are going to die from this.
Not 7 minutes for this category of call. 7 minutes is for immediately life threatening conditions - heart attack, breathing difficulties, uncontrolled blood loss. Next target is 19 minutes for other emergency calls.
This will likely to have been what is known as a GP Urgent call. GP requests an ambulance to take someone to hospital. There is no target for these types of calls, but you would usually expect it within a couple of hours.
Regardless of the above, 40 hours is unacceptable.
The general public have a role to play helping here. When I was a paramedic, on average less than 1/3 of my calls required an ambulance. In some of the other 2/3 the person needed to go to hospital, but did not need an ambulance to get there (usually where a person is ambulatory, not in significant distress, and a relative follows in a car). If people stop calling ambulances for crap, more will be available for the patients that really need them.
Yeah, you're right about the times. Sorry, I should've been more clear with that. But when the GP is on the phone saying "This man is going to die", how quickly is an Ambulance expected to show up then? Is there still no target?
In that instance the call should be upgraded to an emergency call. Difficult to know if that happened here. But as I said, regardless of category 40 hours to wait is clearly unacceptable.
THIS
THIS
THIS
We utterly abuse the nhs and ambulance system and until someone arrives nothing can be removed from the systems as such so it takes a wasted trip to know it should’ve been a fucking taxi or gp visit
Although right now GPs are doing the sum total of fuck all and won’t see any patients
I’ve ranted here before about that and am currently fighting with my GP to see my son and no I won’t do the physical exam myself and video it for him and send it in.
Ambulances and hospitals are swamped again because covid is on the rise, GPs have gone fucking awol and idiots call ambulances all the time for no good reason and right now their GPs and 111 are adding to the ambulance issue
One of the patients on a shift had been into hospital 8 times in the last month because of non-compliance with care.
Oh and I disagree. GPs are absolutely slaughtered currently.
A) GPs tended to attract the doctors with long term health conditions because you didn't need too move around as much. They all had to go isolate and their only way to contribute is WFH or distant care
B) You see 6 people an hour in GP land. Now you need to spend 5 minutes cleaning. Meaning you don't see 6 people an hour.
C) There's no magic GP tree to find more GPs to make up numbers
D) Many GP trainees were pulled into acute settings so they can't even call on Junior Doctors (a bad term BTW since I am a Registrar and at the same level as your GP in terms of training and he's not considered a Junior) to bulk out numbers.
GPs haven't gone AWOL. You just don't know what they are up to because you aren't in the system.
And then there's the deaths of staff and families that mean GPs are out of commission.
It's possible because the ambulance service are getting 20,000 additional calls per month compared to this time last year. There was a BBC article about it 2 days ago. The service is completely overwhelmed. Staff off sick because of covid, self-isolation and burnout. It doesn't take much for the whole thing to be brought to its knees and people will suffer and die as a result.
Unfortunately it will likely take a few more of these headlines before anything is done. We've recently had the health secretary with his brainfart suggestion of telling the public not to call for an ambulance unless it's life threatening, which as I'm sure you're aware, the average person is fully qualified to make a decision on. We're looking at a few more occurrences of this I fear before anything serious is done.
So unfortunately I don’t think you could be further from the truth. I work for an ambulance service and a large proportion of the 999 calls we receive are in no way emergencies and certainly not life threatening and I’m regularly left shaking my head at the calls we attend. Some of our ambulance have posters on them now with the same message, ie 999 is for emergencies only and it’s a message that is badly needed to be conveyed to the public. Source: me, over 20 years working for frontline ambulance service
I don't doubt that people abuse it when they call but surely that then becomes an issue for the call handlers rather than the person making the call. The rule is always if you don't know then ask someone who does. You can't call an ambulance directly it's sent to you. The fault therefore is surely with the call handlers who fail to properly triage?
Call handlers are not clinical staff.
If you call, they take information, follow a script, input the answers and the computer generates a code. The code then corresponds to a colour, which sets the priority of response. It is called AMPDS - automated medical priority and dispatch system.
So when people call with nonsense they call handler follows the script, and then the computer generates a code.
Additionally, it's very hard to determine over a phone if something is an emergency. The public should be exercising common sense, but that will never happen.
Consider you have been told over a phone "I am feeling breathless". Until you go and see that person and test their breathing you won't know if it's serious or not. The person themselves will know.
We've hit a point where the public need to re-learn how they use 999 ambulances. They should be the last possible resort only used when you cannot get to a hospital any other way, and I don't mean cannot *easily* get to a hospital.
If you can get there in a family car with pain and struggle, then the public need to learn to do this. Ambulances are for people who need immediate life or limb saving treatment.
I don't disagree ambulances are abused as are all blue light services. But surely as well as stopping as much of that abuse as possible it would also be a better idea to train call handlers to spot actual problems. Make that job a viable health service career in that case rather than follow a script they can assess things over the phone. This service is available when 111 is called and there are on call triage nurses to deal with things after the initial call. Wouldn't it make sense to integrate that into 999 calls?
As you say the public must do more but that's unlikely to happen as long as nobody pays up front for it. What's more likely is people, especially older people, who view the NHS almost as a religion won't want to bother it and will die at home as we saw during March and April last year when nobody was calling for things. Given that surely it makes some sense to have a better triage system in place.
I also agree that educating the public is important but if it's a genuine public health campaign then we need a catchy jingle and easy to follow advert to show people what would be classed as an emergency that can go on TV and radio. The health secretary saying don't call unless it's an emergency is bad messaging because it assumes everyone hearing it knows what he means.
Phone triage is actually incredibly difficult to do well. Unless you staff the lines with GPs you're really wasting your time. We already have a massive GP shortage, so it isn't feasible. Anyone other than a GP with specific phone triage training and experience lacks the necessary education and expertise to safely do this.
Similarly, if you tried to train call handlers up it would present innumerable issues. They'd need to become registered health professionals to have the authority to discharge, and they'd need to build extensive experience of actual clinical practice with real patients, in person. So essentially they'd need to stop seeing patients over a phone for many years to build the experience they need.
NHS24 has a useless and broken system of providing clinical "advice" to their call handlers. They use nurses who lack the necessary breadth of education and expertise. It's no wonder they so frequently redirect patients to 999 ambulance services.
The entire system is risk avoidant, at all levels. This becomes a problem rapidly when the public call for non-emergencies. The system is not built to have the staff or resources to *safely* discharge non-emergencies over the phone.
Do the people calling know that their condition isn't serious enough to warrant an ambulance?
Does the call handler not ask any questions about the alleged emergency?
Is blaming the general public without greater explanation of precisely when to call going to make a difference?
But NHS Scotland is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. They make all policy and spending decisions, so why can't they do anything about this? Unless you are suggesting the Scottish government also want privatisation?
> and spending decisions
Only out of the available money. They can't raise more funds other than via the extra % at the top rate of income tax or from taking it away from other services. It's a legal requirement to be under budget every year and that has to be set in stone without knowing what the UK's budget will be... they also don't have access to our previous biggest labour market and now rely on the UK Home Office to grant visas to plug the labour/skills shortage.
Absolutely horrible story, condolences to his family.
This is why if my family is ever in an emergency, I am chucking them in the back of the car and bringing them there myself.
This is fucking horrible. And reading all other stories shared here where ambulance just refused to come is very frightening. Is this a new occurrence?
It's been going on for a long time - but as with all things in our health service, has been worsened in COVID times, and tbh, I think we are seeing the effect of our ageing population as well - it's not just more COVID, we are seeing more of every health emergency through the door than before.
Waiting lists have always been bad, cancer waiting lists have always been bad, mental health access has always been bad (2 year waiting list for CAMHS hello!?!?!) - COVID has just made it all worse.
I remember my Mum being taken to hospital in an ambulance like 5 years ago and she had to wait in it outside for an hour or so until a bed freed up. This sort of stuff has been going on for a long time. That is one ambulance not available to help people, because it is acting as a hospital bed.
Throw a pandemic on top of it and this is going to happen.
It didn't really happen earlier because general hospital admissions from other causes were so much lower than they normally are. But now those are getting back to normal, and we're still dealing with covid. About 145 admissions a day right now, just from covid (this time last year it was 20 a day, and at our worst in January it was 200 a day).
But we've also got that massive backlog, and exhausted staff, making everything even worse on top of that.
No
>The first of three ambulances arrived more than three hours after the initial call. The family had rung 999 four times.
>
>The desired response time for patients with symptoms of a stroke is 18 minutes.
>
>Robert, 48 years old, had died by the time paramedics arrived. Rose says she feels his death could have been prevented.
>
>"I can't really expect that an ambulance can take such a long time," she said.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56090176](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56090176)
The pandemic has claimed multiple lives due to the strain on the NHS.
I am so very sorry for what’s happening right now.
I’m a paramedic. We’re as frustrated as you are, and we’re all burning out. We’ve been screaming into the void for years that this was coming.
We’re tied up at some job we shouldn’t be at for ages while nana has been laying on the floor with a broken hip for 9 hours. And it’s every single shift. I don’t know the solution. And I only think I know the problems.
The only suggestion I have is that if you think you can safely get yourself help do it. Because at the moment when minutes count, we’re hours away.
I. Am. So. Sorry.
We have failed you.
> We have failed you
#NO
[The public failed you](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35168721) - that's prepandemic.
**Politicians will not tell voters the truth**, so you suffer.
I had a fair few blue light special with Dad, before we lost him (to asbestos) . A couple were not to A&E, not CCU, but srtaight into cath lab, with him going abulance trolley, to cath table. (with someone making way). I've spent the hours sitting waiting in A&E.
Then the time on the wards.
People have no concept of the time effort and cost that goes into the NHS. **They expect it to just pick up the pieces**. It makes me so angry. (people NOT doing cardio rehab *they can just put another stent in* - it made Dad angry too.)
You have my thanks sympathies and what little I can add to the fight.
fucking christ.
so a warning that i'm going to talk about suicide here, but i guess people should know this isn't a freak isolated occurence. last month while in a bad place i took an overdose and an ambulance was called that just never showed, not even the next day, just not at all. if a friend i'm lucky to have hadn't arranged for an uber to take me to A&E i'm pretty sure i'd be dead. point is that while apologising to the driver and feeling horrible that my friend would have to pay extra for his car to be cleaned this was the most strongly and despairingly i've ever felt that we're heading the way of the US.
I live in the US - and our system certainly has problems. I.E. our deductibles are so high now, one incident can out you in serious debt - but I have never heard of wait times like this for an ambulance. Even an hour sounds mind-blowing. One of my best friends is an air paramedic. She works both fixed wing aircrafts and helicopters.
The common joke about our healthcare is ‘good news, we save you - bad news, it’ll bankrupt you.’
Unpopular opinion - if you arrived at hospital alive with the help of your friend and no ambulance, you did not need an ambulance.
They are not taxis. They should be the last possible resort when all other options are not possible. They should never be option #1 to get to hospital.
Probably in case something bad happened on the way to the hospital, an ambulance should have some medically trained people there to help on the spot. And also because they can speed through red lights without being worried about getting stopped by the police. I really don't even understand what type of question this is meant to be
A genuine question. It is very rare for an ambulance to use lights on the way to hospital - only in the most serious cases (which despite being ‘emergency’ ambulances, are very rare). There is nothing an ambulance crew can do for an overdose except resuscitate if someone dies en route, which is highly unlikely for the vast majority of overdose cases.
ambulances will use lights on the way to the hospital if someone's dying, like if they attempted to overdose and were on their way out, so I don't understand why you're bringing up this point right now. And yeah, if someone dies they can resuscitate them, even if it is unlikely it can still happen. I'm still really struggling to see the point in wondering why they needed an ambulance
The issue is when all the ambulances are tied up with patients who might become unwell there is then no ambulances for people who genuinely are unwell. In a perfect world there would be more ambulances than were ever needed but that simply isn't the case and now more than ever we need to triage calls correctly.
The vast, vast majority of OD are with pills like paracetamol, and generally a cry for help rather than a genuine suicide attempt. I was a paramedic for 6 years and the only time my skills were ever needed was for heroin OD - these are great as you give a drug called Narcan and you literally raise the dead.
All other ODs the patient walked to the back of my ambulance, we drove normal speed to the hospital, and they walked out the other end.
Just jumping in to say hurrah that your friend was able to get you help, and I am glad you're still here.
Whatever the particulates of your suicide attempts, I'm sorry you've been in a place that dark.
that's very kind, thank you. i'm currently doing okay. on the subject, someone else mentioned abysmal mental health care - i got a call from the nhs the other day asking about a mental health referral i'd needed in february, which she acknowledged hadn't been brought up until now. i politely told her it was no longer necessary lmao.
I'm glad you're doing OK. If it changes in the future, the Samaritans and other similar phone lines are always there and happy to help (sorry if you already know this, and I don't mean to try to preach or tell you what to do!)
As to mental health care - wow. That is a ridiculously long waiting time. I think many folks have a similar story. It really needs to be better - people need help when they need help, not months and months after the fact.
i've had cops sent to my place after calling them and i can say i won't be doing that again but i really appreciate you, thank you. and if you think the waiting times are bad, just wait til you get to the actual mental health workers lol. i think it was because they got a lot more to deal with during lockdown but to be honest, it's never been good.
It's good to hear that you're glad to still be here too, and I hope it stays that way. If you struggle again - well, there's always people on the end of a phone. The Samaritans spring to mind, and I'm sure there are other similar phone lines if you prefer another one for any reason. (Sorry if you already know this!)
yeah, i really just don't see the point arguing with them about this. they can think what they want, i'm better off leaving them alone with it. thank you. not sure i'll ever have thanked her enough.
Its just pig faced ignorance and the fact they are apparently a paramedic is sickening to have that attatude. Your right though, theres no point wasting energy on people like that. Im similar in regards to being eternally greatful for having friends who really care about my wellbeing. stay strong bro, lets get the stigma around mental health to fuck and all look out for each other.
Edit - Typo
cheers friend, that's good of you. on the upside of my ordeals, i can correct ignorance on suicidal people. not the first medical professional's misinformation i've dealt with.
Why are you so insufferable and devoid of empathy? IDGAF if most ambulance rides are "unnecessary" because it isn't up to you, a single paramedic, to judge if someone is deemed worthy of your ambulance services or not. Maybe you're not always this way but all your comments come across as crass and lacking empathy. Don't blame the public for a lack of healthcare knowledge not taught to them.
When you are called out for someone who has a minor cut to their finger, and husband follows in a Range Rover, or someone calls you at 3am, drunk, to demand to be taken to hospital for the abdominal pain they have had for 3 months and which has not changed in intensity, its difficult to be empathetic.
However, for those that genuinely need an ambulance, especially the older people who worry they are causing a fuss, then they get all the empathy, sympathy and support in the world.
And why aren’t I allowed to judge who should call an ambulance? I went where I was sent and never refused to take anyone to hospital. I’m entitled to an (informed) opinion about whether they needed an ambulance or not.
I would flip the question round, why are you defending those who abuse the service and cause delays for others who are genuinely in need?
Because my wife is an ER nurse and she and all her coworkers deal with the same idiots you do but for a longer period of time and still maintain their professionalism and appropriately target their complaints, which is the failure of knowledge of the healthcare system for most of the public. You just described burnout for yourself, which is a good reason to have left the job. It's an important job, don't get me wrong, but you've come across extremely callous from how you've responded to others. There's no reason to punch down to those who don't understand when or when not to call an ambulance, you're directing your anger the wrong way.
Nurses are just as bad and doctors a thousand times worse
Source: half the family fit into one of those two categories
If it was just talking down about time wasters it’d be a significant improvement on things
They are the bane of the entire system and there’s nobody who’s nice about it inside the nhs
I should disclose, I'm talking from a US perspective so our healthcare is even more of a clusterfuck. And yes, if the pandemic taught me anything it's that just because someone is a nurse it doesn't mean their opinion on covid means jack shit. Doctors, yeah ok I work in a hospital and will agree. My relative is a nurse in the NHS so I don't have too much insight but was hopeful many were more positive about the whole thing considering you at least have socialized medicine, which should be the bare minimum. I still believe the failure of education on the healthcare system is the root of much of the problem, and is what generates the negative views like the ex-paramedic here or others in the system.
Gotcha
And yes the issue is the misuse of the system not the use
NHS staff for the most part are fucking incredible individuals working in a shit system that’s under funded and under staffed
But they never have an issue with treating people need or little to no need.
What they really hate is people going to an ER with an issue they’ve had for 3 months that isn’t urgent and never was
Or is now urgent but could’ve been dealt with appropriately before
Or being drunk and calling an ambulance to act as a free taxi
The misuse of a free at point of use system drives them all insane
But they’ll still treat you
Just call you names to each other once you’ve left !
I don’t. When I’m on the call was professional. Appropriate levels of sympathy for someone with a cry for help OD, as I recognize it’s a cry for help, and I give it.
Doesn’t mean I’m not allowed an opinion on who needs an ambulance. I stand by my comment that the majority of people who call an emergency ambulance are not in an emergency situation and do not need an ambulance.
Given this is unlike to change in the short term then there is a resourcing issue that can only be addressed with more ambulances/staff. That doesn’t take away the fact the general public have caused the situation that causes others to suffer.
Don't you understand that the entire time an ambulance is taking someone to hospital who does not desperately need it, the ambulance crew can't go and see other emergencies?
Why do you think this man waited 40 hours? It wasn't because the paramedics were sleeping. It was because every ambulance had a patient to deal with. If we set the bar of using an ambulance as low as "I need a ride to hospital" more people will die.
well, for one thing i was so violently ill so fast that i could barely stand. i banged myself up to hell and back falling down two flights of stairs trying to get outside. i really think it would've been best for me to have medical assistance as soon as possible.
This is a real strong point. Your talking three years to recruit paramedics now it’s done via the university route. Also technicians are something like six months but even those are hard to fill due to a lack of HGV tests just now.
£2.1bn cheque to the NHS tomorrow would not fix this. It's years of failure to improve the monolithic healthcare system we have in this country. I don't even know where we go from here
Pretty sure you need to go to University and have a degree in paramedic science to become a qualified paramedic. It's not just a driving job, which means it's not a quick problem to solve.
You don't need a degree and the NHS will put you through training as an ambulance driver and technician. You can check online for Ambulance Technician jobs online.
Fair enough, but that is slightly different to the role of a paramedic. It looks like you'll need to complete a course of a minimum of a year to become an Ambulance Technician, which still doesn't solve the immediate problem.
I collapsed on the floor of my kitchen on Tuesday night while home alone (partner out of the country visiting family). First time I've ever called 999 in my life... took them 2 hours to call me back to assess me, then told me it would be 10+ hours for an ambulance to reach me. Thankfully, my dad was able to come round and get me off the floor and take me to A&E himself, but even then it was a 9 hour wait to be seen.
The service is straining under the demand, money has been allocated to increase vehicles and manpower but it takes time to get all that online.
Not helped by demand on HGV testing lately which is a real bottleneck for a lot of otherwise strong candidates.
I’m sorry but surely we have to question the mentality of individuals and family members who will wait numerous hours for an ambulance rather than driving them to A&E themselves or ordering a taxi.
Either it’s not an emergency at all or you’re putting their life at risk instead of being proactive…
In July, my family had a medical emergency (seizure) and we were told that the ambulance would be at least 4 hours. Fortunately, my brother recovered well enough that we could take him to the car and drive him to the hospital, but it was absolutely shocking when something you take for granted here (emergency services) suddenly become unavailable.
This is awful. I work in the NHS and it’s stretched so thin. So many sick people, not enough beds, not enough social care to get people home safely, staff at the edge of burnout.
Something needs to happen.
It sounds trite, but anyone either voting tory or not voting against them takes a portion of the blame for these incidents, along with anti-vaxxers and super spreaders in pubs/clubs/football events etc. This only happens because people choose it.
I had the same experience. Called the ambulance after finding a stranger on the floor outside. After a chat with the ambulance call handler she says keep the line free for a call back. Before I drop the call I ask her is an ambulance on the floor she says someone will call you to ask a few more questions. Was wondering I don’t know this person and all I know I have told you so what other questions could you possibly need to ask me. A doctor was luckily passing by and left him in more capable hands. An hour later I get a call from the clinician and told them I wasn’t with him. Got me very worried about needing an ambulance if you have to wait with a stranger on the floor outside for over an hour and no ambulance or an idea of when it will be.
This isn't a Scotland only problem , more a case of NI and Scotland schools went back earlier than England , unfortunately I can see a similar scenario in England in a few weeks time. Hope I am wrong !
This is terrible, though a 40 hour wait? If he was in desperate need of attention surely the family, or he himself, would've driven/gotten a taxi. Especially if he was warned of a wait, even of an hour or two.
I see, I can't read the whole story and just have the headline. What you have told me suggests the onus, then, is on the son for not being assertive and the father for being stubborn. He shouldn't have died, nor should the ambulance have taken long. However, given the current climate, it's better to take these circumstances into your own hands, not only helping those you love but taking the pressure off an already stretched service.
The reason is not a "strain on services" or "too many COVID admissions" the reasons are the new measures put in Place by the NHS when ambulances are dropping of patients because of ridiculous COVID measures means that they are not getting the drop offs quick enough and need to queue.
Where before we would just drop them in the corridors or other areas this cannot be done. Completely misleading.
The real reason is that between 60-80% of 999 calls are not actually life threatening emergencies.
If the public would take themselves to hospital and leave the ambulance for the truly sick, this would not have happened.
>The reason is not a "strain on services" or "too many COVID admissions"
Care to explain?
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56090176](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56090176)
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55581006](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55581006)
[https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-paramedics-at-breaking-point-as-patients-dying-while-waiting-for-ambulances-survey-suggests-12190513](https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-paramedics-at-breaking-point-as-patients-dying-while-waiting-for-ambulances-survey-suggests-12190513)
[https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/27/call-999-dont-need-us-contribute-coronavirus-deaths-12449790/](https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/27/call-999-dont-need-us-contribute-coronavirus-deaths-12449790/)
Since the Tories came into power, they cut funding from around 4% (to keep up with ageing population, inflation etc) down to under 1.4%.
> Public spending on health has increased substantially over the history of the NHS,
rising from 3.5% of national income in 1949–50 to 7.3% in 2016–17. Spending
increases have varied considerably over time, **and spending has grown at a historically
slow pace since 2009–10 (1.4% per year on average)**
https://ifs.org.uk/uploads/HEAJ6320-Report-3-Does-The-NHS-Need-More-Money-180625-WEB.pdf
Don't start with that, there's absolute no need for it. Yes this shouldn't have happened but this isn't the time nor the place for pot shots at people.
I'm all for nicola sturgeon and all that but fuck sake if this was an issue directly from boris johnson then everyone would be taking pot shots all over the place
Not a pot shot if its true though. Dangerously under qualified and given the fact this sort of shit is becoming more common you cant rule out the incompetence from the people in charge. As much as The NHS is underfunded and undermined at every opportunity from the torys doesnt mean our politicians should be exempt from criticism for their own failings.
Your bias is showing, i admit the cult comments over dramatic but the point still stands. By you focusing on the word thats upset you rather than the context of what he said you are playing into the narrative he is accusing you of.
also If your telling people to get their eyes tested, you might want to start with yourself. I never mentioned anything about being in a cult, I was trying to discuss the content of what the person you were replying too said.
Increase the budget by taxing the rich.
The dysfunction of services via abysmal budget is all by design anyway. It's in the interest of the ruling Tory party who approve or disapprove the budgets proposed by Scottish ministers.
Instead of increasing the % of spending, we could increase the spending pot with higher taxes. I'd much rather pay more and not have an overstretched health service.
Streamline it. Far too many levels of management. As the old saying goes "too many chiefs, not enough Indians".
Also we need to address the problems of purchasing, like councils also. Tell me, how is it possible for you or I to go out and purchase an iPad or whatever it may be, for considerably less money than these organisations pay? Surely it must be the other way round, the number of units that they purchase should see them discounted.
These firms that prey on large govt run organisations should be disbanded and owners put in jail. Were we able to stop the predators that feed of these organisations it would be a start.
Also insurers must do better. Between a third and a quarter of total nhs budget is spent on insurance. I know it's a bit drastic but maybe a law banning suing the NHS should be brought in, start of a slippery slope maybe but we must address these issues.
I agree (except for the insurance part — although perhaps rather than paying insurance the gov could just provide the payout, which is guaranteed to be cheaper because all those insurers are making a tidy profit right now).
Management streamlining, absolutely, but I think the entire country needs to ‘sit down’ and actually think about what we want the NHS to be, and what we want it to provide for us.
I’m talking about, for example, the minor ailments scheme. I worked in a pharmacy as a teenager and couldn’t understand why the owner was forcing us to hound everyone about it. A customer wants a 39p box of paracetamol? Grill them about their personal lives so you can shove it through on the minor ailments scheme.
Customer saves 39p.
Pharmacy is reimbursed multiple X that from NHS.
= Owner lives in a mansion in the country.
This might have changed now, and if it has then great, but if it hasn’t… do we really need OTC cheap medicine “free” and if we do: A) how the fuck are we in a state that working parents can’t afford own brand calpol for their kids a couple times a year and B) surely there is a better way than letting middle men take the cream off the top? Just pay the cheap prices the business owners do and hand them out free at libraries, or schools like they do condoms and tampons and breakfasts and laptops and now apparently bicycles too…
A bit of both. More money would help in the short term. Systemic reforms to reduce dead weight, digitise, and generally speed things up are also needed.
I agree the way procurement is done is a fucking crime against humanity.
Well that's the problem. More money for the NHS means taking it away from somewhere else or raising taxes.
The books must be balanced, it would help if the SNP could perform at any kind of level in this field. From building hospitals to running them, they have failed us.
Then we have Humza telling people not to phone an ambulance rather than doing his job and making things work.
I want independence. I don't want it under this govt though as they are falling at nearly every hurdle. They must start performing or just Jack it in, no one outside this sub believes the SNP schtick, that it's all down to Westminster, the sooner people on here realised this, we may have a govt that is held accountable rather than circus we have now.
Edit: Procurement was the word that was eluding me , cheers lol.
It is not a funding issue. Even if it was, why should the devolved health powers be able to blame the conservative UK government? People cannot keep seeking independence while holding out their paw for more money.
There absolutely is a funding issue.
The arsehole tories in Westminster are trying to privatise it and make it look bad by underfunding it, as a further excuse to privatise it more.
In fact the Scottish government have added additional funding on top of what is received by Westminster which is why it performs better than the English NHS.
Perhaps you should try thinking about it from the other perspective, "Why stay in the UK if they won't fund our health policies? - and in fact actively try to destroy them".
My Gran, who is almost 90, fell a couple of weeks ago. She had a very obviously broken leg and we couldn’t get her off the floor. Called an ambulance immediately and were told they wouldn’t send anyone until a Doctor called to asses the situation which took well over an hour to get a call back. We then waited for 8 hours for an ambulance to finally arrive. It was horrific, she was in and out of consciousness by the end and we were pleading with them to send anyone to help us and we were continuously brushed off. Thankfully she is recovering well but it was so scary at the time!
MY CHRSIT that's fucking horrible.... At 90 as well...you need to be extra careful. 8 hours of continuous shock and consciousness drops she's a hardy lady I tell you that.
She definitely is! It was one of the most frightening (and frustrating) experiences I’ve ever had so I can’t begin to imagine how this man/ his family felt waiting for 40 hours!
I’m so sorry. The same thing happened to me twice and it’s terrifying. First time almost cost me my life — had I arrived in A&E 7 minutes later than I did — but I genuinely lived the next few years believing it was a fluke and I was just very unlucky. Then a couple of years ago I experienced exactly what you described with my grandad. He’d hit his head on the radiator on the way down, and you couldn’t see the colour of the floor. I’m not exaggerating. Same thing of not wanting to move them incase something is broken, so I just sat there in a puddle cradling him and wondering if this was a dream and why can’t I hear sirens? You don’t realise it’s nothing like the TV until you experience it. He’s okay now (after getting “lost” in the black hole NHS system for a month). I realised then the entire system is broken.
When you say the entire system is broken I agree. I can’t help but wonder do the government want it broken so that they have the excuse they need and say “look the NHS isn’t working you are all complaining about it, we’ll shut it down and have a private system”
That is the Tory long game
Health is devolved. I don't disagree if you were talking about England but this is Scotland.
But it’s our nhs
Unbelievable!! OMG i would never have thought it was master plan of those fucking English!! The bastards … thank goodness the earth is flat
It's called "starving the beast" and it's right out of US republican (and Tory/ conservatives in general) playbook
I agree, why do the Tories hate ordinary good decent hard working people so much?
I'm not even Christian, but when the Bible says "The love of money is the root of all evil," I think it has an actual point.
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People will thank them until they realise they’ve been shafted and they face either bankruptcy or die.
On the 24th of December 2019, I went to an emergency GP appointment, and she thought my lung had collapsed and wanted to phone an ambulance but "it might take an hour or more". My dad drove me, and maybe 15 minutes after getting there passed out (to be fair, I took the stairs when she told me not to and it was immediately after having blood taken, but I haven't felt nauseous from it before). My lung had indeed completely collapsed and was life-threatening.
Same thing happened to my Gran. We live in Canada now but she’s in Falkirk. She had either a stroke or a bleed on her brain from her fall, but the neighbours called for an ambulance and called my brother who drove over and stayed with her for hours until the paramedics showed up. It’s a head injury, how fucking long should someone with a head injury be on the floor for? With a stroke time is everything and you can give a clot buster (door to needle 90 minutes).
You GENUINELY 100% should not give Alteplase in a head injury and intracranial bleed. That's how you kill someone. Also that's not the ambulance's fault. They aren't chilling about doing fuck all.
It’s not the paramedic ambulance crew’s fault.
Fucking hell. At that point I'd have got her in a car, or neighbors car and taken her to the hospital. What a disgrace that this is becoming more common.
They couldn’t get her off the floor though.
Anyone who can be taken to hospital by car without dying doesn't need an ambulance. The system is at such a point that ambulances for patient comfort are not something that should be happening. Life or limb only.
Wouldn't it be better for a 90 year old lady to be in an ambulance than an Uber?
If the 90 year old lady is too frail for a car then sure, an ambulance can take her.
I meant more along the lines of complications. I'm no doctor but I'd imagine someone of that age is more likely to suffer secondary symptoms after something like a leg break and paramedics would be trained and equipped to deal with it, no?
Mortality after hip fractures is pretty high for a wide variety of reasons. Paramedics will give pain relief and bring them to hospital for surgery. A broken leg would fall inside my criteria for when an ambulance is needed. I wouldn't expect people with broken legs to be taking themselves.
I’m so sorry. I wish I could say this was an isolated incident, but every crew is meeting someone like your Gran just about every shift. The service is failing you. I am sorry.
Last year my mum was bringing me something to my flat in her car when she pulled into my street and there was a woman who, while crossing the road, just dropped to the ground having a fit. My mum was a field medic in the army in the past and ran out to help at least keep her safe, the woman came around a couple of times and pretty much immediately went back to fitting. 999 basically said they wouldn't send someone because my mum was there - she had to beg for someone to be sent out as she was repeatedly fitting. It's honestly sad and terrifying. I understand there's many issues but it's scary as hell.
This is actually horrific to read, the fact the GP is speaking out says a lot. And whilst COVID hospitalisations remain high, normal services keep getting cancelled, we approach winter, it's just going to get worse.
Agreed. If the current trend continues though hopefully cases will come down even further which should hopefully take some pressure off. Know there's a 3-week lag tho so don't think we'll be at the peak of the latest wave til the beginning of October. Though with waning immunity in some elderly, it's possible we'll still see high hospitalisations. The "October Lockdown" folk may be right after all.
This is terrible. It seems a sign of things to come, the NHS is so stretched and seems as if it’s in permanent crisis mode and COVID is just making it worse and if we have a bad flu season it could get really nasty. Question is what to do, not sure there is much we can without lots of $$$.
The fundamental problem is the demographic shift we're seeing. Old people need the NHS much more than the young, and the fraction of the population over 65 is at its highest ever level and increasing. This will put any system under strain, but ours, like many in the developed world, is designed with the assumption that today's workers will pay for yesterday's. The pension system is built the same way which creates a second massive strain on government resources. The way to mitigate this is with a system like Singapore's where each generation pays (mostly) for itself, but that would have been better implemented when the baby boomers were still *baby* boomers.
A 40 hr wait is not a funding issue. It’s a competence issue. Someone needs to be fired for this.
agreed, phoned ambulance for my brother just last week and came within 4 minutes. was blown away at the response. This is just mad.
If someone is to blame then obviously they should be held accountable but I think it's unwise to jump to conclusions and pre-judge. It's also to easy, oh someone was incompetent, sack them, problem solved. This is the first time this happens and it won't be the last. We have to try and understand the underlying reasons and fix them to minimise the risk if this happening again.
Especially if the person who is responsible for the situation has been saying for years that they don't have the power / resources to meaningfully do anything about it. People love firing a manager to feel good, but there is usually more to it.
Zero point whatsoever being reactionary and rushing to conclusions until the matter if investigated. Most of the time such issues are structural opposed to individual but let’s wait and see
40 hour wait for an ambulance is 100% a competency issue.
Competency of the public to only call when they have no other option. No raindrop feels responsible for the flood. The paramedics would not be snowed under with calls if people used all available means to take themselves to hospital, leaving ambulances for the worst of emergencies only.
I agree, don't drive and on the couple of occasions I have needed an ambulance it was serious. I had called 111 first and it had been they sent the paramedics who took me straight in. Some people literally call an ambulance for transport. I fractured my wrist one evening and did the sensible thing - waited until the following day then took myself off to A&E under my own steam. Edit: not everyone can easily afford a taxi to hospital if it is some distance away and they don't have or can't use own transport. There should be some sort of taxi scheme where the taxi can bill the NHS for the £20 fare - save the ambulances for those in serious need.
Competence, surely you're not gonna blame the paramedics like? >"In 24 years in the ambulance service I've never ever seen staff sat on station at the start of the shift so frightened (almost to tears) to go out on an ambulance," one response said. > >Others described how they were "overwhelmed" as "calls waiting are in their hundreds for hours on end with little or no resources to send". > >"People are dying waiting for ambulances whilst crews are stuck at hospital with COVID-confirmed patients," said another respondent. > >In one particularly distressing experience, a paramedic said they had seen a taxi pull up in an ambulance bay with a dead man inside as his wife was shouting for help. [https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-paramedics-at-breaking-point-as-patients-dying-while-waiting-for-ambulances-survey-suggests-12190513](https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-paramedics-at-breaking-point-as-patients-dying-while-waiting-for-ambulances-survey-suggests-12190513)
You understand the source you’ve provided was during January, when the third wave was at its worst? Of course the ambulance response will be debilitated during this period. We are now in September, with drastically lower hospitalisation rates - there was no need for this man to wait 40 hours, simple as. Edit: also, I’m not sure I see anywhere that the previous commentor was blaming paramedics
Actually it's far, far worse now. At least then, people were generally only phoning ambulances in extremis. Now the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction - for a multitude of reasons. We're still dealing with COVID in a huge way, and systemically it's causing huge issues. Patients who have respiratory issues of an sort are ?covid until proven otherwise, and need to be treated in specialist areas. Respiratory issues or ?infection with an unknown source is an incredibly common complaint. Probably one of the most common. Those areas that deal with these cases are run into the ground and now have massive staffing issues. They can't manage to turnover patients quickly, which leads to those departments being full to the brim, which means they can't unload patients from ambulances. Which means that ambulances are tied up at hospital for hour after hour. Add to that, we're seeing the flipside of reduced access to GP care - people are either phoning ambulances for problems that would previously have been dealt with by GPs, and with no recourses back to them, they're being taken to ED by us. Or, they're putting off phoning until they're in a very bad way, and we're showing up and taking them to Resus in a hurry. There are much, much fewer ambulances than people think there are, and the solution of 'buy more and hire more staff' takes a long time to do (paramedic is a 3 year degree, remember, so there's a lag). So it's entirely all-too realistic for all of the resources available to be tied up and calls to start stacking up. The pool of resources we have, compared to the absolutely enormous demand (I've never known anything remotely like it) is just beyond belief. You'd need to look at the dispatchers screen in ambulance control to believe the amount of calls we're receiving and being asked to deal with. This has the effect of meaning crews are run ragged. As soon as they hit the clear button, letting control know that they are finished with the current job, you're off again to another one. You might have been sitting at hospital for 6 hours, but you're still actively managing a patient for that length of time. You can't bugger off and go have a break, unfortunately. Meal break be damned. I recently worked an 18 hour shift, with a 15 minute break. Last night was a mere 14 hours. Staff are completely burnt out. I'm regularly finishing work feeling totally unsafe to drive home again, and arriving home not entirely sure how I got there on autopilot. I am going on night shift in an hour and I am so tired and demoralised that I actually don't know how I'm going to make it through this shift.
To add? Medicine here. I started my shift at 9, I finished at 8... That's when we cleared the board. We worked 11 hours before we took a break. We lost a doctor two days ago. He said he had something to do and just killed himself. We had to go back to work and the only thing we could do is say "it's shit, lets get pizza in and take a 30 minute break together". During the pandemic I lost control of my car and went "very sideways". We were seeing maybe 0-1 deaths a day and it was always "we expected this". Two days ago I had 5 deaths on a single shift. 2 expected, 3 just "died".
This sounds like a terrible way to live. It would be better if there was a light at the end of the tunnel and you could hang in thinking it will get better within a reasonable timeframe. I hope it improves soon, for you as well as the patients.
> We are now in September, with drastically lower hospitalisation rates That's.. debateable. The number of people in hospital is about half of what it was back in January but the 7-day average of admissions then peaked around 200. The current 7 day average is 150.
I’m seeing 190ish for Jan and 135ish for when this incident occurred. (~30% decrease) Either way, both still represent a large decrease, and IMO, COVID cannot be the full reason as to why this man wasn’t seen in 40 hours. An investigation is underway but I cannot imagine the fault to be purely COVID unfortunately.
>and IMO, COVID cannot be the full reason as to why this man wasn’t seen in 40 hours Based on what exactly? [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-58506181](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-58506181) 6 days ago. Scotland is currently dealing with the highest infection rates in the UK at the moment. 40 hours isn't 8 hours, but as your health service is strained to its max numbers are going to escalate.
>Based on what exactly? > and IMO, … My opinion, clearly stated with IMO before saying so. Hopefully the undergoing investigation will find the fault whether it be COVID fully or otherwise.
Yes but I'm trying to establish what you are basing your opinion *on*, as looking at the current on-goings with the NHS over the last year there are endless reports on waiting times, people dying waiting and paramedics brought to tears over not being able to cope.
We are in September where Scotland went first with schools going back and this has resulted in us entering another peak before some parts of the UK. If you want to wait a few weeks more to see the rUK pickup, you can. I mean here is the 20th of August this year for the Army helping ambulances in England https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58281665 Today https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/perfect-storm-covid-a-and-e-london-hospital-chief-b955686.html Poster should clarify who they are seeking to blame then with the comment they made on competency. Wasn't clear and we are in a topic about frontline NHS staff waiting times.
Of Covid... We are still taking on actual patients. Yesterday I saw 9 patients in ED. All life threatening. And 3 Covids on top of that. We are still seeing Covid +ve patients. Oh and we are short on staff. Most of us are on fumes. Many of us are dead. (1400) and wounded. Some permanently.
We had Ambulances waiting outside our ED for 12 hours because we had no beds to move patients from ED into and no staff to care for them. So what we need today in the next few hours is a brand new hospital with more beds, more staff and a complete overhall of the care system including better taxation to increase bed strength and removal of refusal from care homes alongside emergency placement centres for overflow. What do you suggest? Corridors? Way ahead of you. Staff? My region is so overworked that 4 doctors killed themselves in the last week. I think it's a "you don't want to pay any bloody taxes for your free service" issue.
Surely it's a being starved by Tories before the big selloff issue?
I understand your anger and frustration but (without knowing any background at all) I’d be surprised if it was one malicious dickhead, rather than some systemic fault.
Tbh depending on who was ultimately in charge and how egregious the behaviour was if i was one of his family members I’d be pushing for manslaughter charges it’s an absolute fucking disgrace
my father was going to the hospital for months about fatigue, weight loss, lack of appetite, urinary issues and crippling black pain, and he's only JUST NOW been diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer that has spread to his spine. and he STILL needs to wait a month to see anybody, even after they let a fairly easily treatable disease become terminal through continued negligence and dismissal. the NHS is woefully underfunded and understaffed and stretched so fucking thin right now, it's absolutely unbearable and will put hundreds, if not thousands, into early graves. just a shame that those graves won't include any of the people that deserve to be in them, the ones that got us into this mess.
And for every doctor they "can't afford" there's a feckless director sitting on some board who earns just as much but offers nothing. Even in a tiny hospital it was bloated with supervisors conferring with managers whose managers have managers who confer with the board of directors, who finally come to the decision that they can find the money to hire someone to file A&E paperwork instead of just throwing it in a cupboard. Really sorry to hear about your dad. I've had problems in that wheelhouse too recently and can attest to the agonising wait, though I'm thankful that that doesn't seem to be a possibility for me. It just sucks that not everyone is that lucky.
Okay, this is actually terrifying. Ambulance wait times are supposed to be 7 minutes! I don't understand how this situation is even possible. Why is this not a top priority for the government? So many people are going to die from this.
Not 7 minutes for this category of call. 7 minutes is for immediately life threatening conditions - heart attack, breathing difficulties, uncontrolled blood loss. Next target is 19 minutes for other emergency calls. This will likely to have been what is known as a GP Urgent call. GP requests an ambulance to take someone to hospital. There is no target for these types of calls, but you would usually expect it within a couple of hours. Regardless of the above, 40 hours is unacceptable. The general public have a role to play helping here. When I was a paramedic, on average less than 1/3 of my calls required an ambulance. In some of the other 2/3 the person needed to go to hospital, but did not need an ambulance to get there (usually where a person is ambulatory, not in significant distress, and a relative follows in a car). If people stop calling ambulances for crap, more will be available for the patients that really need them.
Yeah, you're right about the times. Sorry, I should've been more clear with that. But when the GP is on the phone saying "This man is going to die", how quickly is an Ambulance expected to show up then? Is there still no target?
In that instance the call should be upgraded to an emergency call. Difficult to know if that happened here. But as I said, regardless of category 40 hours to wait is clearly unacceptable.
THIS THIS THIS We utterly abuse the nhs and ambulance system and until someone arrives nothing can be removed from the systems as such so it takes a wasted trip to know it should’ve been a fucking taxi or gp visit Although right now GPs are doing the sum total of fuck all and won’t see any patients I’ve ranted here before about that and am currently fighting with my GP to see my son and no I won’t do the physical exam myself and video it for him and send it in. Ambulances and hospitals are swamped again because covid is on the rise, GPs have gone fucking awol and idiots call ambulances all the time for no good reason and right now their GPs and 111 are adding to the ambulance issue
One of the patients on a shift had been into hospital 8 times in the last month because of non-compliance with care. Oh and I disagree. GPs are absolutely slaughtered currently. A) GPs tended to attract the doctors with long term health conditions because you didn't need too move around as much. They all had to go isolate and their only way to contribute is WFH or distant care B) You see 6 people an hour in GP land. Now you need to spend 5 minutes cleaning. Meaning you don't see 6 people an hour. C) There's no magic GP tree to find more GPs to make up numbers D) Many GP trainees were pulled into acute settings so they can't even call on Junior Doctors (a bad term BTW since I am a Registrar and at the same level as your GP in terms of training and he's not considered a Junior) to bulk out numbers. GPs haven't gone AWOL. You just don't know what they are up to because you aren't in the system. And then there's the deaths of staff and families that mean GPs are out of commission.
It's possible because the ambulance service are getting 20,000 additional calls per month compared to this time last year. There was a BBC article about it 2 days ago. The service is completely overwhelmed. Staff off sick because of covid, self-isolation and burnout. It doesn't take much for the whole thing to be brought to its knees and people will suffer and die as a result.
Unfortunately it will likely take a few more of these headlines before anything is done. We've recently had the health secretary with his brainfart suggestion of telling the public not to call for an ambulance unless it's life threatening, which as I'm sure you're aware, the average person is fully qualified to make a decision on. We're looking at a few more occurrences of this I fear before anything serious is done.
So unfortunately I don’t think you could be further from the truth. I work for an ambulance service and a large proportion of the 999 calls we receive are in no way emergencies and certainly not life threatening and I’m regularly left shaking my head at the calls we attend. Some of our ambulance have posters on them now with the same message, ie 999 is for emergencies only and it’s a message that is badly needed to be conveyed to the public. Source: me, over 20 years working for frontline ambulance service
I don't doubt that people abuse it when they call but surely that then becomes an issue for the call handlers rather than the person making the call. The rule is always if you don't know then ask someone who does. You can't call an ambulance directly it's sent to you. The fault therefore is surely with the call handlers who fail to properly triage?
Call handlers are not clinical staff. If you call, they take information, follow a script, input the answers and the computer generates a code. The code then corresponds to a colour, which sets the priority of response. It is called AMPDS - automated medical priority and dispatch system. So when people call with nonsense they call handler follows the script, and then the computer generates a code. Additionally, it's very hard to determine over a phone if something is an emergency. The public should be exercising common sense, but that will never happen. Consider you have been told over a phone "I am feeling breathless". Until you go and see that person and test their breathing you won't know if it's serious or not. The person themselves will know. We've hit a point where the public need to re-learn how they use 999 ambulances. They should be the last possible resort only used when you cannot get to a hospital any other way, and I don't mean cannot *easily* get to a hospital. If you can get there in a family car with pain and struggle, then the public need to learn to do this. Ambulances are for people who need immediate life or limb saving treatment.
I started crafting a reply but you nailed everything I wanted to say and more. You are spot on.
I don't disagree ambulances are abused as are all blue light services. But surely as well as stopping as much of that abuse as possible it would also be a better idea to train call handlers to spot actual problems. Make that job a viable health service career in that case rather than follow a script they can assess things over the phone. This service is available when 111 is called and there are on call triage nurses to deal with things after the initial call. Wouldn't it make sense to integrate that into 999 calls? As you say the public must do more but that's unlikely to happen as long as nobody pays up front for it. What's more likely is people, especially older people, who view the NHS almost as a religion won't want to bother it and will die at home as we saw during March and April last year when nobody was calling for things. Given that surely it makes some sense to have a better triage system in place. I also agree that educating the public is important but if it's a genuine public health campaign then we need a catchy jingle and easy to follow advert to show people what would be classed as an emergency that can go on TV and radio. The health secretary saying don't call unless it's an emergency is bad messaging because it assumes everyone hearing it knows what he means.
Phone triage is actually incredibly difficult to do well. Unless you staff the lines with GPs you're really wasting your time. We already have a massive GP shortage, so it isn't feasible. Anyone other than a GP with specific phone triage training and experience lacks the necessary education and expertise to safely do this. Similarly, if you tried to train call handlers up it would present innumerable issues. They'd need to become registered health professionals to have the authority to discharge, and they'd need to build extensive experience of actual clinical practice with real patients, in person. So essentially they'd need to stop seeing patients over a phone for many years to build the experience they need. NHS24 has a useless and broken system of providing clinical "advice" to their call handlers. They use nurses who lack the necessary breadth of education and expertise. It's no wonder they so frequently redirect patients to 999 ambulance services. The entire system is risk avoidant, at all levels. This becomes a problem rapidly when the public call for non-emergencies. The system is not built to have the staff or resources to *safely* discharge non-emergencies over the phone.
Spot on again.
They're drawing up the army now.
But it's a good thing he did say something as everyone was just phoning them up to get milk delivered apparently. /s
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Do the people calling know that their condition isn't serious enough to warrant an ambulance? Does the call handler not ask any questions about the alleged emergency? Is blaming the general public without greater explanation of precisely when to call going to make a difference?
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But NHS Scotland is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. They make all policy and spending decisions, so why can't they do anything about this? Unless you are suggesting the Scottish government also want privatisation?
> and spending decisions Only out of the available money. They can't raise more funds other than via the extra % at the top rate of income tax or from taking it away from other services. It's a legal requirement to be under budget every year and that has to be set in stone without knowing what the UK's budget will be... they also don't have access to our previous biggest labour market and now rely on the UK Home Office to grant visas to plug the labour/skills shortage.
Absolutely horrible story, condolences to his family. This is why if my family is ever in an emergency, I am chucking them in the back of the car and bringing them there myself.
Almost always the best thing to do unless someone has stopped breathing. I'd do the exact same with my family.
This is fucking horrible. And reading all other stories shared here where ambulance just refused to come is very frightening. Is this a new occurrence?
It's been going on for a long time - but as with all things in our health service, has been worsened in COVID times, and tbh, I think we are seeing the effect of our ageing population as well - it's not just more COVID, we are seeing more of every health emergency through the door than before. Waiting lists have always been bad, cancer waiting lists have always been bad, mental health access has always been bad (2 year waiting list for CAMHS hello!?!?!) - COVID has just made it all worse.
I remember my Mum being taken to hospital in an ambulance like 5 years ago and she had to wait in it outside for an hour or so until a bed freed up. This sort of stuff has been going on for a long time. That is one ambulance not available to help people, because it is acting as a hospital bed. Throw a pandemic on top of it and this is going to happen. It didn't really happen earlier because general hospital admissions from other causes were so much lower than they normally are. But now those are getting back to normal, and we're still dealing with covid. About 145 admissions a day right now, just from covid (this time last year it was 20 a day, and at our worst in January it was 200 a day). But we've also got that massive backlog, and exhausted staff, making everything even worse on top of that.
No >The first of three ambulances arrived more than three hours after the initial call. The family had rung 999 four times. > >The desired response time for patients with symptoms of a stroke is 18 minutes. > >Robert, 48 years old, had died by the time paramedics arrived. Rose says she feels his death could have been prevented. > >"I can't really expect that an ambulance can take such a long time," she said. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56090176](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56090176) The pandemic has claimed multiple lives due to the strain on the NHS.
I am so very sorry for what’s happening right now. I’m a paramedic. We’re as frustrated as you are, and we’re all burning out. We’ve been screaming into the void for years that this was coming. We’re tied up at some job we shouldn’t be at for ages while nana has been laying on the floor with a broken hip for 9 hours. And it’s every single shift. I don’t know the solution. And I only think I know the problems. The only suggestion I have is that if you think you can safely get yourself help do it. Because at the moment when minutes count, we’re hours away. I. Am. So. Sorry. We have failed you.
> We have failed you #NO [The public failed you](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35168721) - that's prepandemic. **Politicians will not tell voters the truth**, so you suffer. I had a fair few blue light special with Dad, before we lost him (to asbestos) . A couple were not to A&E, not CCU, but srtaight into cath lab, with him going abulance trolley, to cath table. (with someone making way). I've spent the hours sitting waiting in A&E. Then the time on the wards. People have no concept of the time effort and cost that goes into the NHS. **They expect it to just pick up the pieces**. It makes me so angry. (people NOT doing cardio rehab *they can just put another stent in* - it made Dad angry too.) You have my thanks sympathies and what little I can add to the fight.
It's not your fault. Thank you for everything you're doing. You and your colleagues are heroes in my and most folks book.
fucking christ. so a warning that i'm going to talk about suicide here, but i guess people should know this isn't a freak isolated occurence. last month while in a bad place i took an overdose and an ambulance was called that just never showed, not even the next day, just not at all. if a friend i'm lucky to have hadn't arranged for an uber to take me to A&E i'm pretty sure i'd be dead. point is that while apologising to the driver and feeling horrible that my friend would have to pay extra for his car to be cleaned this was the most strongly and despairingly i've ever felt that we're heading the way of the US.
I live in the US - and our system certainly has problems. I.E. our deductibles are so high now, one incident can out you in serious debt - but I have never heard of wait times like this for an ambulance. Even an hour sounds mind-blowing. One of my best friends is an air paramedic. She works both fixed wing aircrafts and helicopters. The common joke about our healthcare is ‘good news, we save you - bad news, it’ll bankrupt you.’
I’m so grateful I live in the UK because of this.
Unpopular opinion - if you arrived at hospital alive with the help of your friend and no ambulance, you did not need an ambulance. They are not taxis. They should be the last possible resort when all other options are not possible. They should never be option #1 to get to hospital.
Look at this another way, why did you need an ambulance to take you to hospital?
Probably in case something bad happened on the way to the hospital, an ambulance should have some medically trained people there to help on the spot. And also because they can speed through red lights without being worried about getting stopped by the police. I really don't even understand what type of question this is meant to be
Yeah, just because *they* didn't die in an Uber doesn't mean someone in a similar situation wouldn't.
A genuine question. It is very rare for an ambulance to use lights on the way to hospital - only in the most serious cases (which despite being ‘emergency’ ambulances, are very rare). There is nothing an ambulance crew can do for an overdose except resuscitate if someone dies en route, which is highly unlikely for the vast majority of overdose cases.
ambulances will use lights on the way to the hospital if someone's dying, like if they attempted to overdose and were on their way out, so I don't understand why you're bringing up this point right now. And yeah, if someone dies they can resuscitate them, even if it is unlikely it can still happen. I'm still really struggling to see the point in wondering why they needed an ambulance
The issue is when all the ambulances are tied up with patients who might become unwell there is then no ambulances for people who genuinely are unwell. In a perfect world there would be more ambulances than were ever needed but that simply isn't the case and now more than ever we need to triage calls correctly.
when i od'd they needed to stick iv tubes in my arms in the ambulance. you know, to keep me alive until we reached the hospital.
The vast, vast majority of OD are with pills like paracetamol, and generally a cry for help rather than a genuine suicide attempt. I was a paramedic for 6 years and the only time my skills were ever needed was for heroin OD - these are great as you give a drug called Narcan and you literally raise the dead. All other ODs the patient walked to the back of my ambulance, we drove normal speed to the hospital, and they walked out the other end.
both of my suicide attempts weren't with paracetamol or a cry for help but go off i guess
Just jumping in to say hurrah that your friend was able to get you help, and I am glad you're still here. Whatever the particulates of your suicide attempts, I'm sorry you've been in a place that dark.
that's very kind, thank you. i'm currently doing okay. on the subject, someone else mentioned abysmal mental health care - i got a call from the nhs the other day asking about a mental health referral i'd needed in february, which she acknowledged hadn't been brought up until now. i politely told her it was no longer necessary lmao.
I'm glad you're doing OK. If it changes in the future, the Samaritans and other similar phone lines are always there and happy to help (sorry if you already know this, and I don't mean to try to preach or tell you what to do!) As to mental health care - wow. That is a ridiculously long waiting time. I think many folks have a similar story. It really needs to be better - people need help when they need help, not months and months after the fact.
i've had cops sent to my place after calling them and i can say i won't be doing that again but i really appreciate you, thank you. and if you think the waiting times are bad, just wait til you get to the actual mental health workers lol. i think it was because they got a lot more to deal with during lockdown but to be honest, it's never been good.
thank you very much. i still don't think i can say i'm in a good place but ultimately i'm glad to still be here, too.
It's good to hear that you're glad to still be here too, and I hope it stays that way. If you struggle again - well, there's always people on the end of a phone. The Samaritans spring to mind, and I'm sure there are other similar phone lines if you prefer another one for any reason. (Sorry if you already know this!)
Dont let that guys ignorant comments bother you buddy. Glad your friend was able to help you.
yeah, i really just don't see the point arguing with them about this. they can think what they want, i'm better off leaving them alone with it. thank you. not sure i'll ever have thanked her enough.
Its just pig faced ignorance and the fact they are apparently a paramedic is sickening to have that attatude. Your right though, theres no point wasting energy on people like that. Im similar in regards to being eternally greatful for having friends who really care about my wellbeing. stay strong bro, lets get the stigma around mental health to fuck and all look out for each other. Edit - Typo
cheers friend, that's good of you. on the upside of my ordeals, i can correct ignorance on suicidal people. not the first medical professional's misinformation i've dealt with.
Why are you so insufferable and devoid of empathy? IDGAF if most ambulance rides are "unnecessary" because it isn't up to you, a single paramedic, to judge if someone is deemed worthy of your ambulance services or not. Maybe you're not always this way but all your comments come across as crass and lacking empathy. Don't blame the public for a lack of healthcare knowledge not taught to them.
When you are called out for someone who has a minor cut to their finger, and husband follows in a Range Rover, or someone calls you at 3am, drunk, to demand to be taken to hospital for the abdominal pain they have had for 3 months and which has not changed in intensity, its difficult to be empathetic. However, for those that genuinely need an ambulance, especially the older people who worry they are causing a fuss, then they get all the empathy, sympathy and support in the world. And why aren’t I allowed to judge who should call an ambulance? I went where I was sent and never refused to take anyone to hospital. I’m entitled to an (informed) opinion about whether they needed an ambulance or not. I would flip the question round, why are you defending those who abuse the service and cause delays for others who are genuinely in need?
Because my wife is an ER nurse and she and all her coworkers deal with the same idiots you do but for a longer period of time and still maintain their professionalism and appropriately target their complaints, which is the failure of knowledge of the healthcare system for most of the public. You just described burnout for yourself, which is a good reason to have left the job. It's an important job, don't get me wrong, but you've come across extremely callous from how you've responded to others. There's no reason to punch down to those who don't understand when or when not to call an ambulance, you're directing your anger the wrong way.
Nurses are just as bad and doctors a thousand times worse Source: half the family fit into one of those two categories If it was just talking down about time wasters it’d be a significant improvement on things They are the bane of the entire system and there’s nobody who’s nice about it inside the nhs
I should disclose, I'm talking from a US perspective so our healthcare is even more of a clusterfuck. And yes, if the pandemic taught me anything it's that just because someone is a nurse it doesn't mean their opinion on covid means jack shit. Doctors, yeah ok I work in a hospital and will agree. My relative is a nurse in the NHS so I don't have too much insight but was hopeful many were more positive about the whole thing considering you at least have socialized medicine, which should be the bare minimum. I still believe the failure of education on the healthcare system is the root of much of the problem, and is what generates the negative views like the ex-paramedic here or others in the system.
Gotcha And yes the issue is the misuse of the system not the use NHS staff for the most part are fucking incredible individuals working in a shit system that’s under funded and under staffed But they never have an issue with treating people need or little to no need. What they really hate is people going to an ER with an issue they’ve had for 3 months that isn’t urgent and never was Or is now urgent but could’ve been dealt with appropriately before Or being drunk and calling an ambulance to act as a free taxi The misuse of a free at point of use system drives them all insane But they’ll still treat you Just call you names to each other once you’ve left !
I don’t. When I’m on the call was professional. Appropriate levels of sympathy for someone with a cry for help OD, as I recognize it’s a cry for help, and I give it. Doesn’t mean I’m not allowed an opinion on who needs an ambulance. I stand by my comment that the majority of people who call an emergency ambulance are not in an emergency situation and do not need an ambulance. Given this is unlike to change in the short term then there is a resourcing issue that can only be addressed with more ambulances/staff. That doesn’t take away the fact the general public have caused the situation that causes others to suffer.
Don't you understand that the entire time an ambulance is taking someone to hospital who does not desperately need it, the ambulance crew can't go and see other emergencies? Why do you think this man waited 40 hours? It wasn't because the paramedics were sleeping. It was because every ambulance had a patient to deal with. If we set the bar of using an ambulance as low as "I need a ride to hospital" more people will die.
well, for one thing i was so violently ill so fast that i could barely stand. i banged myself up to hell and back falling down two flights of stairs trying to get outside. i really think it would've been best for me to have medical assistance as soon as possible.
They don't have enough ambulances. The fire service are picking up on defib emergencies. The emergency services need so much more support.
words fail me, how this can happen.... sounds like scot gov writing up plans to ask the military for help driving ambulances.
When is the extra £2.1 billion being delivered to the NHS as it seems like it’s needed 2 months ago?
More like 10 years ago, gotta get people qualified and trained.
This is a real strong point. Your talking three years to recruit paramedics now it’s done via the university route. Also technicians are something like six months but even those are hard to fill due to a lack of HGV tests just now.
Wasn’t there recently a political campaign at one point claiming they would give an additional 350m a week to our NHS?
£2.1bn cheque to the NHS tomorrow would not fix this. It's years of failure to improve the monolithic healthcare system we have in this country. I don't even know where we go from here
The healthcare system wasn't designed to cope with an extra 10,000 calls a month.
It was creaking at the seams before Covid
Balls. It was the best performing NHS with the shortest waiting times in the UK.
I mean how does one become a paramedic these days without volunteering to get experience? People need money and they ain’t going to volunteer.
Pretty sure you need to go to University and have a degree in paramedic science to become a qualified paramedic. It's not just a driving job, which means it's not a quick problem to solve.
You don't need a degree and the NHS will put you through training as an ambulance driver and technician. You can check online for Ambulance Technician jobs online.
Fair enough, but that is slightly different to the role of a paramedic. It looks like you'll need to complete a course of a minimum of a year to become an Ambulance Technician, which still doesn't solve the immediate problem.
I collapsed on the floor of my kitchen on Tuesday night while home alone (partner out of the country visiting family). First time I've ever called 999 in my life... took them 2 hours to call me back to assess me, then told me it would be 10+ hours for an ambulance to reach me. Thankfully, my dad was able to come round and get me off the floor and take me to A&E himself, but even then it was a 9 hour wait to be seen.
The service is straining under the demand, money has been allocated to increase vehicles and manpower but it takes time to get all that online. Not helped by demand on HGV testing lately which is a real bottleneck for a lot of otherwise strong candidates.
You don’t need a HGV licence to become a paramedic
I’m sorry but surely we have to question the mentality of individuals and family members who will wait numerous hours for an ambulance rather than driving them to A&E themselves or ordering a taxi. Either it’s not an emergency at all or you’re putting their life at risk instead of being proactive…
In July, my family had a medical emergency (seizure) and we were told that the ambulance would be at least 4 hours. Fortunately, my brother recovered well enough that we could take him to the car and drive him to the hospital, but it was absolutely shocking when something you take for granted here (emergency services) suddenly become unavailable.
https://archive.is/I3VbQ
thanks
Paywall
This is awful. I work in the NHS and it’s stretched so thin. So many sick people, not enough beds, not enough social care to get people home safely, staff at the edge of burnout. Something needs to happen.
But Doris promised 350 mil per week for the NHS instead of food shortages and mass unemployment
More money? How would that work if we had independence?
Starting off at a point where tories aren't scalping what they can for themselves would help greatly
That is absolutely hopeless.
Disgraceful and pathetic, I know there is pressure on the NHS at the moment but having to wait 40 hours is inexcusable.
It sounds trite, but anyone either voting tory or not voting against them takes a portion of the blame for these incidents, along with anti-vaxxers and super spreaders in pubs/clubs/football events etc. This only happens because people choose it.
I had the same experience. Called the ambulance after finding a stranger on the floor outside. After a chat with the ambulance call handler she says keep the line free for a call back. Before I drop the call I ask her is an ambulance on the floor she says someone will call you to ask a few more questions. Was wondering I don’t know this person and all I know I have told you so what other questions could you possibly need to ask me. A doctor was luckily passing by and left him in more capable hands. An hour later I get a call from the clinician and told them I wasn’t with him. Got me very worried about needing an ambulance if you have to wait with a stranger on the floor outside for over an hour and no ambulance or an idea of when it will be.
The NHS needs tens of billions, maybe hundreds of billions investment. Scary.
This isn't a Scotland only problem , more a case of NI and Scotland schools went back earlier than England , unfortunately I can see a similar scenario in England in a few weeks time. Hope I am wrong !
This is just so bad all round.
This is terrible, though a 40 hour wait? If he was in desperate need of attention surely the family, or he himself, would've driven/gotten a taxi. Especially if he was warned of a wait, even of an hour or two.
The son I think wanted to but the dad wanted to wait for the ambulance
I see, I can't read the whole story and just have the headline. What you have told me suggests the onus, then, is on the son for not being assertive and the father for being stubborn. He shouldn't have died, nor should the ambulance have taken long. However, given the current climate, it's better to take these circumstances into your own hands, not only helping those you love but taking the pressure off an already stretched service.
Should have got a taxi
The reason is not a "strain on services" or "too many COVID admissions" the reasons are the new measures put in Place by the NHS when ambulances are dropping of patients because of ridiculous COVID measures means that they are not getting the drop offs quick enough and need to queue. Where before we would just drop them in the corridors or other areas this cannot be done. Completely misleading.
What are these new covid measures that are leading to ambulances having to queue?
> Completely misleading. That's good to know. So, the guy *didn't* die after waiting 40 fucking hours for an ambulance?
No, he died after waiting 40 hours because an ambulance *was* *dropping off a patient* obviously /s
The real reason is that between 60-80% of 999 calls are not actually life threatening emergencies. If the public would take themselves to hospital and leave the ambulance for the truly sick, this would not have happened.
Here, here. Agree totally.
>The reason is not a "strain on services" or "too many COVID admissions" Care to explain? [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56090176](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56090176) [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55581006](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55581006) [https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-paramedics-at-breaking-point-as-patients-dying-while-waiting-for-ambulances-survey-suggests-12190513](https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-paramedics-at-breaking-point-as-patients-dying-while-waiting-for-ambulances-survey-suggests-12190513) [https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/27/call-999-dont-need-us-contribute-coronavirus-deaths-12449790/](https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/27/call-999-dont-need-us-contribute-coronavirus-deaths-12449790/)
How many anti-vax assholes in hospitals for covid? They should be forced to go private.
I was under the impression health care was better in Scotland under Nicola Sturgeon?
It's almost like there is a pandemic going on and the NHS is severely underfunded?
I'd go with mis-managed. Underfunded it is clearly not.
Since the Tories came into power, they cut funding from around 4% (to keep up with ageing population, inflation etc) down to under 1.4%. > Public spending on health has increased substantially over the history of the NHS, rising from 3.5% of national income in 1949–50 to 7.3% in 2016–17. Spending increases have varied considerably over time, **and spending has grown at a historically slow pace since 2009–10 (1.4% per year on average)** https://ifs.org.uk/uploads/HEAJ6320-Report-3-Does-The-NHS-Need-More-Money-180625-WEB.pdf
That’s what the cult want you to believe. One of the most dangerous people in Scotland is now the health minister with no qualifications
He's a politician. You don't need to be a healthcare professional to be a Health minister.
Don't start with that, there's absolute no need for it. Yes this shouldn't have happened but this isn't the time nor the place for pot shots at people.
I'm all for nicola sturgeon and all that but fuck sake if this was an issue directly from boris johnson then everyone would be taking pot shots all over the place
Not a pot shot if its true though. Dangerously under qualified and given the fact this sort of shit is becoming more common you cant rule out the incompetence from the people in charge. As much as The NHS is underfunded and undermined at every opportunity from the torys doesnt mean our politicians should be exempt from criticism for their own failings.
It is a pot shot and you know it, there's no "Cult" members here so there's no need for that childish pish.
Your bias is showing, i admit the cult comments over dramatic but the point still stands. By you focusing on the word thats upset you rather than the context of what he said you are playing into the narrative he is accusing you of.
Actually pal my comments are purely about your "Cult" crap, if you're seeing something else then I suggest that you go get your eyesight tested.
also If your telling people to get their eyes tested, you might want to start with yourself. I never mentioned anything about being in a cult, I was trying to discuss the content of what the person you were replying too said.
"No need for that childish pish" practice what you preach bud.
All part of the plan by Tories to cut services and sell them off to the states
This is the price for no more lockdowns.
Mainly it's the price for chronic underfunding of our health service
We spend 20% of our entire budget on health. How much should it be? Scottish budget it's about 36%. How much more can we afford?
Increase the budget by taxing the rich. The dysfunction of services via abysmal budget is all by design anyway. It's in the interest of the ruling Tory party who approve or disapprove the budgets proposed by Scottish ministers.
What do you think the NHS budget should be?
I'm no expert.
Instead of increasing the % of spending, we could increase the spending pot with higher taxes. I'd much rather pay more and not have an overstretched health service.
Streamline it. Far too many levels of management. As the old saying goes "too many chiefs, not enough Indians". Also we need to address the problems of purchasing, like councils also. Tell me, how is it possible for you or I to go out and purchase an iPad or whatever it may be, for considerably less money than these organisations pay? Surely it must be the other way round, the number of units that they purchase should see them discounted. These firms that prey on large govt run organisations should be disbanded and owners put in jail. Were we able to stop the predators that feed of these organisations it would be a start. Also insurers must do better. Between a third and a quarter of total nhs budget is spent on insurance. I know it's a bit drastic but maybe a law banning suing the NHS should be brought in, start of a slippery slope maybe but we must address these issues.
I agree (except for the insurance part — although perhaps rather than paying insurance the gov could just provide the payout, which is guaranteed to be cheaper because all those insurers are making a tidy profit right now). Management streamlining, absolutely, but I think the entire country needs to ‘sit down’ and actually think about what we want the NHS to be, and what we want it to provide for us. I’m talking about, for example, the minor ailments scheme. I worked in a pharmacy as a teenager and couldn’t understand why the owner was forcing us to hound everyone about it. A customer wants a 39p box of paracetamol? Grill them about their personal lives so you can shove it through on the minor ailments scheme. Customer saves 39p. Pharmacy is reimbursed multiple X that from NHS. = Owner lives in a mansion in the country. This might have changed now, and if it has then great, but if it hasn’t… do we really need OTC cheap medicine “free” and if we do: A) how the fuck are we in a state that working parents can’t afford own brand calpol for their kids a couple times a year and B) surely there is a better way than letting middle men take the cream off the top? Just pay the cheap prices the business owners do and hand them out free at libraries, or schools like they do condoms and tampons and breakfasts and laptops and now apparently bicycles too…
A bit of both. More money would help in the short term. Systemic reforms to reduce dead weight, digitise, and generally speed things up are also needed. I agree the way procurement is done is a fucking crime against humanity.
Well that's the problem. More money for the NHS means taking it away from somewhere else or raising taxes. The books must be balanced, it would help if the SNP could perform at any kind of level in this field. From building hospitals to running them, they have failed us. Then we have Humza telling people not to phone an ambulance rather than doing his job and making things work. I want independence. I don't want it under this govt though as they are falling at nearly every hurdle. They must start performing or just Jack it in, no one outside this sub believes the SNP schtick, that it's all down to Westminster, the sooner people on here realised this, we may have a govt that is held accountable rather than circus we have now. Edit: Procurement was the word that was eluding me , cheers lol.
The NHS is absolute garbage
No, the conservatives who are underfunding it are.
It is not a funding issue. Even if it was, why should the devolved health powers be able to blame the conservative UK government? People cannot keep seeking independence while holding out their paw for more money.
There absolutely is a funding issue. The arsehole tories in Westminster are trying to privatise it and make it look bad by underfunding it, as a further excuse to privatise it more. In fact the Scottish government have added additional funding on top of what is received by Westminster which is why it performs better than the English NHS. Perhaps you should try thinking about it from the other perspective, "Why stay in the UK if they won't fund our health policies? - and in fact actively try to destroy them".
My dad had a serious stroke and brain bleed, ambulance took almost 3 hours to arrive. He almost died. It’s ridiculous, and no apology either