Paramedics made my father go to hospital

You’d be the first to complain if they didn’t get him in and checked and it was Infact a heart attack. They are trained, you are not.

Do people think that working for the emergency services is like working in a supermarket or cafe where you have to join the back of the queue?
Every 999 call is strictly risk assessed and you cannot send anyone to the back of the queue if there need is greater than everyone else in the queue.
I took police 999 calls for long enough.
Sorry KiwiFall, I have quoted you in error here as I was agreeing with you.

Hi OP, and I'm sure that this must all be very stressful. It also can't be helping given the posts that you're getting. I think that the inconsistencies in your posts are probably not helping.

We seem to have gone from

They still essentially made him go to hospital, saying that they would make him sign forms if he didn’t which showed he had refused medical advice. I was present and the paramedics essentially made it sound as though he would be at the back of the queue if it returned and he needed an ambulance again.

To this later post, which seems quite emphatic in stating that he would not get an ambulance again later if he needed one. Which was it?

I hope that your father is safe.

That is most definitely not the case, all paramedics know about AF. They are often the first clinicians to diagnose it from the ecg they take.

also got to say that paramedics will have said hospital is the safest option as paramedics do not take bloods so cannot 100% accurately diagnose silent heart attacks, PEs etc.

believe me when I say A&E and AMU do not keep patients waiting just for fun, we would rather the worried well go home and free up some space!

No such thing as “back of queue” as they attend every call even the time wasters and the hoax calls. They maybe said if you choose not to go to hospital the next ambulance may not get to you in time (they had to wait for hours for this one) but if they said that it’s because it was the truth and a possibility of the repercussions of the patient not going into hospital that the patient has to be made aware of.

That still doesn’t make it better for a patient to be at home, an ambulance ride away if it’s likely they’re going to have an event.

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I have. Mum. 95 with vascular dementia. Every time I’ve had to ring 999 they have attended. Even when she hasn’t been evaluated as needing hospital treatment. Every. Single. Time.

There is no ‘back of the queue’. Op has either misunderstood or is embellishing. Stop enabling this nonsense.

There is no ‘back of the queue’. My BiL is a paramedic. They have a duty of care and are legally obliged to attend no matter how many times you refuse to attend hospital as long as you are judged to have the capacity to make that decision. You need to give your own head a wobble if you think the ambulance service can ‘punish’ you for not attending hospital.

Yeah, who cares if it’s a pile of nonsense! Complain complain and practice the daily mail sad face!

For them to say he’d be at the back of the queue for future calls is disgraceful. Sums up the toxic culture in the ambulance service. I’d make a complaint, not that it would be listened to as there is also a cover up culture where whistleblowers face negative career consequences

Have any of you actually had to care for elderly parents who are constantly having falls and emergencies and had to navigate the current health system?
I think not, because if you had you wouldn't be making these generic comments.
The reality of these situations are very different to what should happen.

But sometimes, as is the case here, her father has stabilised, but they made him afraid not to go to the hospital.
Surely one person less in a hospital is a bonus, even if sometimes they're called out again.

They are allowed to stay home, they aren't under arrest. But if they need (& want) emergency medical treatment - they need to be in the hospital.

If they don't need (or want) emergency medical treatment, probably pointless calling an ambulance.

But the family called a 999 ambulance

Sign the waiver and stay at home 💁 if you're so certain that your dad knows his AF so well and he's absolutely certain he doesn't need a hospital then it wouldn't matter that he's back of the queue for the next ambulance because from what youre implying, all your dad needed to do was sleep it off.

You read it as that, but what they probably meant was it took an hour to arrive the first time, it could take the same or longer the next time.

Well said, l totally agree with every word. Get so sick of people ripping good people to shreds. Until you have walked in their shoes, they have no complaints. Hopefully next time they may want to ring for an ambulance, they should decide if they really do want it, and let someone who really needs it have instead. Thank your daughter for all she does...👏👏👏

He had a choice to sign but he didn’t.
no it wasn’t a heart attack but one day it might be and then he and you will be grateful he’s in the right place.
Given the time it took it took for the ambulance to come, the paramedics were probably concerned that if it was more serious and a heart attack occurred the ambulance wouldn’t get there in time.

I can completely sympathise with you.
My sister's and I had two elderly parents to look after and it was always a constant battle.
There definitely needs to be a change in the system, as often when they are taken in to hospital there aren't the resources to look after them, (a prime example is sitting in a plastic chair for 10 hours, or in A&E for a day!, without being seen), and I'm sure that health wise and emotionally they suffer more than if they were allowed to stay home.
You are NOT being unreasonable and the emergency health care system has to change.
It needs to be more flexible and they need to work with the patients rather than against them.

Why are you not grateful that they took your fathers health seriously? There are mnany of us for which that was not the case, ending in death

The paramedics are doing their job. If things are so bad that you call an ambulance then it is right they encourage your father to attend a&e (otherwise why call??). He could have signed to not go. They have to be forceful, they are used to people trying to sue who sign but say they ‘didn’t understand the consequences fully’. I hope your father is ok.

So you called them out, didn’t want to take their advice because you felt you knew better, are annoyed that they were doing their jobs and covering themselves for any further repercussions by suggesting he go to hospital and ended up with a long wait. If he’d had a heart attack you’d be moaning. He could’ve refused to go? He could leave the hospital now 🤷🏻‍♀️ so yes yabu

I agree with everything except the last sentence. I think it’s very unlikely they were saying they’d be put to the back of the queue for previously refusing treatment. What they most likely meant (based on OPs ever changing story), is that if something happened later on, the chances of them getting an ambulance there in time to help was minimal (given general waiting times and the local event she mentioned).