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

My own 98 yo gran is in hospital too. 2 days in corridor, bed after bed after bed of elderly people. Day 3 got moved into an assessment bay with 6 others. This is still a&e, not an actual ward. Wait time 60+ hours. There was a woman sat on the floor of the main a&e doors with an IV bag, sick bowl and blanket round her. Queue was out the door. One guy was either asleep or dead (didn’t move whole time we were visiting) in another doorway. Outside car park 20+ ambulances all with engines running and patients on board.
I was shocked at how bad it was. Really really shocked.

That's horrific.

It happened to my 90+ mum a couple of years ago - she too was waiting 8 hours, outside on the hottest day of the year. She was then waiting in the hospital until 25 hours after the fall.

A word of caution - after her operation she may appear to have dementia, but it's the result of having the operation. It's very distressing at the time but they do come out of that state.

Personally I would use Twitter to contact my MP and every newspaper I can think of. It's so shocking that anyone has to wait like that, let alone a lady of that age.

Who is with her now?

With an ever increasing elderly population, it's only going to get a lot worse. It really doesn't matter which party is in government it's too late. NHS/Social care is utterly fucked.

I put" chest pains" in inverted commas as I didn't want to imply she had actually had a heart attack or clot in lungs . I did realise the most likely cause was positional pain from laying / falling on a hard floor but wasn't prepared to take that chance . However having read my post back I can see how it could be interpreted. ( she actually had a broken rib in addition to fractured neck of femur )

This website will help you to contact the correct MP.

https://www.writetothem.com/

Well perhaps in your world an 80 year old person is expendable and them dying in severe pain a few days later is neither here nor there

The shocking thing is, is that this isn’t shocking at all.

I’ve heard so many similar stories. Vulnerable, elderly patients waiting 10+ hours in pain on the floor with significant injuries because of no availability for emergency ambulances.

This country is in a fucking shambles and it’s going to take years to fix.

I feel so sorry for your gran and your family OP. It’s not fair 😓

Not true.

Had a nightmare in A and E today with non verbal disabled five year old screaming most of the time. Sat in a tiny room for nearly 12 hours. He was really distressed. I think the staff tried, but I think they were just too frazzled to really understand why we were there. It's not about age. It's just shit.

Nobody seemed to understand that traditional interventions don't work on children with complex needs. He needs restraining just to take obs.

What a load of twaddle. It was awful under labour too. No one can fix it, the demand is too high and too many overpaid managers spoiling the broth. What it needs are more hospitals, more decent front line staff and more ambulances to cope with the ever growing population including the millions of people we support each year from other countries which was never such an issue 30/40/50 years ago as immigration was more limited. We can't cope because there's too many people, too many who run off to hospital/call an ambulance when not needed and the NHS is very poorly run.

You put “developed chest pain” in quotes implying it was fictitious chest pain made up to make the ambulance arrive quicker. I don’t think the previous poster misread your post, it’s how I read it too.

My husband collapsed with kidney infection. Waited 17 hours for ambulance. Died 2 days later from blood clot. Inquest decided the long lie had been a factor with dehydration and infection. This was in Wales

I’m so sorry to hear about your gran and I hope she is seen through.

I do wonder if this sort of scenario should be taken into account when discussing assisted dying. If I was 97 and reading this I’d be wondering if it would be less painful to pop my clogs before it all happened. And the cynic in me says is that what the powers that be really want as it’s cheaper and is it therefore the beginning of a slippery slope.

But then on the other hand I saw a grandparent go through the most awful last few months and she would gladly have taken some help. Who knows.

sorry to go off on a tangent. Hope there is good news for your gran

This can be very dangerous. Don't move her . You could complicate things much more .

So sorry your granny is in this position,its a joke people.are waiting that long and in pain...is there a wheelchair @ home or easily borrowed? If she was able to be transferred onto that a wheelchair taxi could take.hee then ? I know it's not ideal but at least she would be in hospital ! The system is seriously broke

The Tories totally screwed up the NHS. It will take years for Labour to fix it sadly.

At my local infirmary today (taking mum to a routine appt)
There were over 20 ambulances stacked outside A&E - I have never honestly seen it so bad- There was a queue of people outside A&E waiting to get into the already packed (standing room only) waiting room. This was 4pm today. I knew things were bad but I've never seen it so bad and it shocked me. I hope your gran gets the care and attention she needs and deserves.
It reminded me of the news stories from a war torn country on TV- it's not how it should be 😡

Meant mis read my post.

It actually isn't an immediate risk to life though like a child choking, a person having a heart attack or stroke, the person bleeding out as they've been shot. Yes it is horrendous but it is not an immediate priority when there are limited resources available. It is year through now not just winter pressures.

Hmm, think you have must read my post , she did actually develop chest pain . Likely from laying on a hard floor for about 6 hours but could have easily been a blood clot . Had it been one she would have died on the floor . As I am unable to perform an ECG/ scan at home I wasn't prepared to take the chance .

I have just finished a 13 day working for an NHS rapid response team. Our current wait times are 16 hours. Our service picks some people up too. Today has been hell - so so busy. There is merely not enough capacity as cat 1 and 2 calls are given priority over falls. I never had any idea how many elderly people were falling, it is a huge issue. I had a lady on the floor outside Asda last year, clearly had a fractured hip, end of November, pissing down, freezing and she still waited 9 hours. The amount of shoppers that literally trod over her (she fell by door) was absolutely shocking.

It's actually a life or death situation for an elderly person to be left lying on the floor. But this probably isn't the place to tell you how I know that.

Recently I was hit by a car whilst riding my horse and the ambulance arrived in 15 minutes which shocked me, I thought I'd be lying in the road for hours.

Another time I broke my leg and they refused to come and told me to get someone to help me hop to a car and drive me to hospital.

Sadly I think if you're not in immediate danger of dying they don't come or they take 8 hours.

It’s not ok to lie and divert ambulances away from higher priority emergencies. A child could potentially die from this sort of immoral behaviour