97 Yr old Gran waiting 8 hours for an ambulance with a broken hip!

Something needs to be done to assist the elderly . When we were waiting in critical care 90% of those waiting were 80 +.
I don't know whether them being treated at home would be better but I can see how this demographic dominates hospital need .

"you see there is a terrible shortage of beds"

Uttered by the actor playing the doctor in a Steptoe and Son episode Upstairs Downstairs Upstairs Downstairs, from 1974
NINETEEN SEVENTY FOUR!

My child choked and they said 6 hour wait for ambulance, go to hospital by car. My dad collapsed with chest pains, they said 6 hour wait, go to hospital by car. I don't know what kind of cases get these ambulances.

Actually my next door neighbour died suddenly (but predictably due to terminal illness) and the ambulance came pretty quickly for that. Maybe their priorities are wrong. I mean it was obviously very upsetting for his relatives and did justify help but it must have been prioritised well above someone alive and suffering for an ambulance to come within a few minutes

You put developed in the quotes. I think we all know what you meant.

"Years ago I used to volunteer in a geriatric hospital (late 70s when I was a St John Ambulance cadet in my teens). Maybe they could be brought back along with more cottage hospitals for convalescence. The bulk of the nursing staff needn't be so qualified as there wouldn't be so much acute care so staffing costs could be lower.

Depends who they are looking after and what their needs are. Bringing someone a cup of tea and a meal is easy but most geriatic caring is much more skilled.

For example, caring for anyone bedbound or with dementia is a skilled job that to be done well needs training, experience and most of all needs to be done with actual care. Too many people working in the sector don't have any of these criteria including a poor grasp of English which itself can cause death:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-67622479

I'm posting this to the memory of Barbara Rymell in the hope getting people to remember her and her story may improve things for everyone.

A woman died after getting trapped under a stair lift with her care staff unable to tell 999 what had happened because they could not speak English well enough, an inquest has heard.

She was pronounced dead upon arrival of paramedics, who did not know the severity of the incident when the first 999 call was made.
The coroner noted that the carer did not appear to understand the difference between "bleeding" and "breathing", as well as "alert" and "alive".
The coroner said care staff must speak English well to prevent further deaths.

It's really a pot luck shit show. I know my hospital somehow copes much better than the one I grew up next too in a deprived town.

I was just saying my teen unfortunately prayed you have a massive heart attack is possibly a good outcome

That's terrible! And I thought it's only in Canada that healthcare is bad. I hope she's being taken care of by now!

There is no private ambulance. The war and taxes aren't really the issue here as she just needs to be assessed.
How do you know she has broken her hip if she hasn't been assessed yet?
Why are you going on about writing your Mp instead of how to get your gran more comfortable?
You can call the ambulance service back with updates eg she is cold,incontinent etc etc yo expedite

This is the norm op. I'm so so sorry, you must feel awful but no worse than your poor dear nan x

So that was in 1988, under the Tories?

The Blair government improved the NHS massively. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/reports/high-performing-nhs-review-progress-1997-2010

Then the Tories got in and Lansley "reformed" the NHS at a cost of billions of pounds.

I took it into my head to ring for a taxi to get me to hospital when I suddenly developed symptoms which I ,as a retired nurse, knew were very dangerous.
I had heard nightmare stories about waits for ambulances.
The taxi came n about 5 minutes, got me straight to the nearest hospital in 10 minutes.My medical knowledge was right, I had a large pulmonary embolism in one lung which was making it's way across to the other one.This condition killed my sister almost instantly.
If I had rung for an ambulance and explained my symptoms it may have come quickly but it may have not.I was not prepared to take any chances as was alone in the house.
I might not have been here now typing this.

If there isn't an ambulance then there just isn’t. Once she’s in A&E the care won’t be any better.

My FIL fell and broke his pelvis and ankle on his one good leg. He was disabled and already had one leg with no feeling (after radiation treatment as a child). So no good legs and completely immobile. Once in A&E they left him alone in a side room to go to the toilet in a bottle and he fell off the bed! I had to get a police officer who happened to be in the corridor to pick FIL up as the nurse just stood there like a wet blanket not knowing what to do.

A few months later he fell and broke his back. The staff spent 3 days moving him around, sitting him up and laying him down. Finally after 3 days they gave him a scan and said “Oh you have a broken back. No wonder you told us you were in pain.” They’d only been giving him paracetamol despite him being already prescribed much stronger pain killers on a daily basis by his GP for his already crumbling spine. They refused to give him his regular meds. His blood pressure skyrocketed.

He was released and dumped in the middle of his kitchen by 2 ambulance men who just left. They’d left his lifeline controller out of reach and he couldn’t reach his phone. I just happened to turn up to check on his house and found him there, freezing cold in his dressing gown and bare feet. We rang the GP and a nurse came and said he shouldn’t have been discharged. Discharge form said he’d been diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer but the hospital didn’t tell him or his family or his GP! This was 3 years ago now. The NHS isn’t just on its knees as people keep saying, it’s gone way beyond that.

It’s been dreadful for years but until you experience it with a loved one it’s just a number. Seeing an elderly relative on the floor for hours on end is very distressing for them and whoever is with them. It’s not a new problem but that still doesn’t make it acceptable.

i had to phone an ambulance for my child last night and there were 411 active calls and approximately a 12 hour delay.. I hope she gets one soon x

"Years ago I used to volunteer in a geriatric hospital (late 70s when I was a St John Ambulance cadet in my teens). Maybe they could be brought back along with more cottage hospitals for convalescence. The bulk of the nursing staff needn't be so qualified as there wouldn't be so much acute care so staffing costs could be lower.

I don't know. I'm just thinking aloud. I may be talking bollocks."

I am not a HCP but I agree surely this might be the sort of thing we should be looking at @CharlotteStreetW1

Decent convalescence care as part of social care.

It was. I'm 40 and I remember when I was 6 years old with appendicitis sitting in a&e for 9 hours and sitting on the floor because it was so busy. I then had my urgent emergency appendectomy delayed because the ambulances were backed up down the main road and they needed to get through those first. It's been bad for a really long time regardless of who is in government.

No it wasn't. There was a 4 hour wait target for a and E when labour were in power under Blair. Mostly that target was met, for everyone, including less urgent cases. If you waited longer (unusual) it would still be within 5 or 6 hours. Nowadays it's common to wait far far longer. Getting seen within 4 hours is quick now!

Ambulances came quicker too - there were targets for different categories of cases and they were mostly met. Old people simply didn't wait hours and days after a fall. A couple of hours perhaps. Nowadays waiting over 12 is the norm.

Why are you claiming this lie? Do you not remember? Are you a troll?

I have been a full time NHS hospital consultant for nearly 30 years and there is truth behind most of the problems mentioned here.

I feel defeated and think we are going to have to start paying for it through insurance somehow. But it will be difficult to determine who will have to pay. We need to look perhaps to countries like Belgium and Australia for ideas. No system is perfect but ours is well and truly broken.

rubbish, it was never this bad 15 years ago before the evil lying Tory scum took over and gave all the money to their pals and manufactured the disastrous Brexit which caused skilled nhs workers to leave in droves. We need immigrants to staff our care homes and hospitals as fat lazy Brits won’t do it.

The PP seems very harsh on elderly patients' families, but at the heart of it is an extremely good point, that one of the main reasons the hospitals and ambulances are in such a state is because the failure of social care, which results in "bed-blocking".

A key factor that keeps ambulances backed up in car parks isn't immigration, or too many managers, or obesity, or even aging (though that's a big issue), it's the fact that you can't send "mended" but frail elderly patients home without care.

Without sorting out social care, by extreme measures (probably involving a "death tax") people like with OP's nan will carry on lying on floors for hours. We need to talk about it. (And not by suggesting mass euthanasia).

Yep Have you noticed that the NHS workers on here NEVER mention Carers Allowance and how pitiful it is They were also conspicuous by their abscence on the CA scandal threads.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5048517-to-bring-your-attention-to-the-carers-benefit-fraud-scandal

Instead its all about those shit families who cant be bothered to look after their elderly relatives.

Horrific . Personally I think things have got so bad they aren't recoverable .
My mum 82 was kicked by a horse and an ambulance wouldn't come out . There was huge pressure for her to call family to take her to A & E which when we heard we did . God knows how she would have got there if she hadn't had us or we were on holiday .
She broke her arm in two places and when we returned to the fracture clinic for our appointment at 11am already they'd had 4 no show appointments missed . Disgusting abuse by the public .

It is outrageous but sadly that is how things are now and will only get worse. I hope your Nan is ok but please don’t take out your anger on the crew when they arrive; it’s not their fault