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

My dad was sent home from hospital on 16th September. He died on 6th October after a fall at the bottom of the stairs due to weakness from prostate cancer

I'm so sorry for your loss

Again TO ANYONE if you don't need to go please don't go to A&E with things you should be seeing your doctor about. Even pharmacy can help.

We haven’t successfully got a GP appointment with our NHS GP for years. If you get through on the phone, big if, they have no appointments ever. The one time we got one, it was at an alternative surgery several miles away and was was later cancelled by them and we were told to go to A&E. The pharmacist seems to say you need to see GP for most things so people are often stuck in a cycle. We pay for private GP appointments when needed, which not everyone can afford. So imo people often have no choice but to go to A&E. When wait times are many hours, I don’t think most people do it lightly. They’re often desperate for help.

Yes and absolutely nothing to do with Blair opening the flood gates of mass immigration. Yet people still expect the same levels of care, service and infrastructure etc. Wake up.

Iraq. Foundation hospitals. Deregulation of Financial authorities. Uni fees. I could go on and on....

Well which would you rather they do? Leave the one in immediate danger of death?'

My 92 year old aunt- who can barely walk with a walker, has osteoporosis and scoliosis and is blind- was left in her wheelchair in A and E overnight with pneumonia and no treatment and a thin blanket. She was then given 24 hours of intravenous anti-biotics, then an enema at 8pm.
An NHS Dr assured her sister at 7pm that she would not be discharged that night and that when she was it would be in an ambulance and after liaison with her assisted care facility.

At 8.30pm that night she was discharged into a normal taxi, in a nightdress and dressing gown. The taxi driver drove her back to her extra-care accommodation - where no one had no idea she was being discharged and there was no one to meet her. She had emptied her bowels in the taxi.

A carer who happened to be passing by helped the taxi driver get her into her flat, showered her down and got her into bed. However the enema kept having it's effects and she was found on the shit-covered bathroom floor the next morning very weak and cold.
And the hospital refused to return her wheelchair- it is hers not an NHS wheelchair. In the end I went to collect it, found it in the ward and just told them I was taking it back as she had paid for it.
The NHS is absolutely fucked.

FIL was left lying in the middle of the road for 5 hours. He’s 83. Ambulance never came - in the end the police took him to hospital. Bleed on brain…

it’s a horrible mess and everyone needs to pay way more tax if it’s to get better. Very few of the elderly are net contributors over their lifetimes and unless half us pay in more than we get out, the system is broken (yes I know that’s not quite right, but it’s not a bad approximation)

Is she still at home OP? There comes a point where you just have to find a way to get them in yourself, we were refused an ambulance for ‘low priority’ FIL who was immediately diagnosed with sepsis on arrival to A&E.

MIL had a fall earlier this year and was waiting over 9 hours for an ambulance, however when we found FIL unresponsive we had 2 ambulances arrive within 8 minutes.

It doesn’t make MIL wait time any better, but did bring it home that the long wait times are because the service are having to prioritise situations where there is an imitant threat to life.

Unfortunately FIL didn’t make it, one ambulance left quite quickly but the other stayed outside for around 2 hours completing end of life documentation. It turns out there is a lot of admin for the service when things don’t work out.

It didn't. But it's true, it is a shit show now

Agreed 👍

And it also needs, given that we have a growing aging population, for the general public to take far more responsibility for their own health and fitness so that the people who do need medical attention are more likely to get it.

What a load of twaddle. It was awful under labour too.

Ambulance waiting times in 2009-10

The percentage of category A incidents that resulted in an emergency response arriving at the scene of the incident within 8 minutes in 2009-10 was 74.3 per cent (same as the previous year).

The percentage of category A incidents that resulted in an ambulance vehicle capable of transporting the patient arriving at the scene within 19 minutes1 was 96.8 per cent (96.9 per cent in the previous year). For category B incidents this was 91.0 per cent (same as the previous year).

digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/ambulance-services/ambulance-services-england-2009-10#:~:text=The%20percentage%20of%20category%20A,same%20as%20the%20previous%20year).

I am very sorry your gran waited so long.
Too many people and too little beds/ ambulances it seems.

It gets very busy over winter periods.

Ask your government to rally for our NHS.

Again TO ANYONE if you don't need to go please don't go to A&E with things you should be seeing your doctor about. Even pharmacy can help.

That’s disgusting. Your Gran should be shown the dignity, care and respect she deserves.
This country is going downhill fast.
I’m so sorry op. I hope she gets help soon 😢

Something like that may be the only way out now it’s got so bad, but then again, I’m very aware that’s what they want us to believe so that we’re all behind it when it happens.

I’m so sorry this has happened to your poor Grandma. I hope she gets seen to quickly when help arrives. You could write to your Granny’s MP to complain. I did this when we had a similar waiting with my Granny who had a stroke, were advised to take her to A&E ourselves. There were no ambulances for my dad when he had sepsis either and it took 6 hours for him to get through A&E.

I'm so sorry you and your poor nan are going through this. Utterly heartbreaking.

Makes me so mad.

The NHS and care system is not going to improve any time soon. Politically popular to block dependents travelling with parents to work here but the impact has been HUGE on numbers applying to work here despite it being a shortage occupation.

Health and Care Worker visa applications from main applicants increased from 4,100 to 18,300 between February 2022 and August 2023, following the addition of care workers to the Shortage Occupation List. Applications have decreased since August 2023, falling to 2,200 in October 2024.
There were 17,400 applications between April and October 2024, following the policy changes affecting social care workers and their family members - 83% fewer than the same 7 months in 2023.
Applications for dependants on the Health and Care Worker route increased in-line with main applicants, peaking at 23,300 in August 2023. Applications for dependants have decreased since December 2023, falling to 4,200 in October 2024.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/monthly-entry-clearance-visa-applications/monthly-monitoring-of-entry-clearance-visa-applications

I hope the ambulance gets there very soon…your poor Gran
x

The NHS in its current form is not salvageable. We need to move to a personal insurance based system before the whole thing collapses. NHS is a brilliant idea but it is no longer financially viable. It’s very sad, but true.

The biggest issue is bed blocking - patients fit to be discharged from the acute hospital but they can't go home/no care hone willing to take them/family refusing to engage with social workers to get them out of hospital/plethora of others reasons.

The above patients are in the beds so they can't send patients up from a&e, so ambulances can't bring new patients in ...

Doesn't apply to the op but for any emergency medical cases where you can reasonably use a car i would!

I think it was good under Blair but started to go downhill with Brown. Then it’s been a shit show since.