In the 70s and 80s: did people call 999 more?

[wanderings]

Attitudes to emergency services are very different now, especially with cuts to public services. Nowadays the advice is more "don't call 999", rather than "call 999".

Following on from the thread about calling ambulances for broken bones: I was a child of the 80's so I only had the child's perspective on that period. Growing up, I was very lucky in that almost nobody in my family ever needed to go to hospital for anything, right up until my late twenties, so I had very little experience of the process, but I remember so many stories about ambulances being called all the time when children fell off bikes, always calling the police for this and that, and in those days police would be on the street regularly anyway, and doctors made home visits. I remember a lot of what we learned at school about emergency services; they were always there ready to be called, a policeman is your friend, etc. The only advice I remember about not calling 999 was for something that didn't happen, such as calling the fire brigade when there was no fire.

The above may of course have been the simplified, age-appropriate advice: anything wrong, call 999, you learn about appropriate use of public resources later. Was the advice for adults back then always to call 999, or "call a doctor" for lesser things? Nowadays, while something is going wrong before your very eyes, you have to make the careful choice of pharmacist/GP/minor injuries/A&E, and if MN is anything to go by, woe betide you if you get it wrong and waste the wrong public servant's time.

Is one reason we do things differently now because far more of us have cars, and mobile phones, and can more easily get someone to hospital? Is it that we can easily check symptoms on the internet, when we couldn't before? Are we generally more "informed" than before? (I remember my dad calling 999 to complain about a police helicopter that had been overhead for hours one night. Even I knew this wasn't an appropriate use of 999, but I said nothing.)

I do think this is relevant to now in a way, because people who were children in the 80's might now be new parents, and are suddenly faced with the modern ways of getting help, and their only experience might have been what they learned as children. (I expect many people are more likely to call emergency services for children, rather than for themselves.) Somebody who has been healthy all their life, and unfamiliar with hospitals in general, might automatically call 999 if they see a hint of an emergency.

People also wander into A&E because they can't get a Gp appointment till a week on wednesday 😕

my younger sister broke her arm at school, one of teachers drove her to the hospital after the local GP came and diagnosed a break.
We were told to tell our mum what had happened when she came to collect us in the afternoon, and my Dad bought my sister home from the hospital on his way home from work.
None of that seemed unusual at the time, I don't think I ever saw an ambulance in the village I grew up in, if anyone needed to get to hospital, someone would drive them there as it was quicker than waiting. Hospital was 8 miles away, and it would take about 1/2 hour to get there, door to door.

The lack of house calls by doctors is the most shocking to me.

This ^^ I'm in my forties and the Dr would come out to see you if you needed. These days, you're advised to call 111 who have certain 'trigger' words that mean they send an ambulance and my paramedic friend says if you decide you want to go to hospital, they have to take you.

It means children with colds and such are taken to to A&E. It's a ridiculous state of affairs.

Call volume has massively increased
I started in 2008. 2000 calls would be a busy day
Left last year. 4000 calls was a normal day
Also 2008, a stabbing would be a "OMG" call. Last year a stabbing would never raise an eyebrow
People call for more silly reasons too

My in laws, who are in their 70s, have always been incredibly reliant on the NHS and will go to hospital or doctors at the drop of a hat. In fact, they’ll go even if they can’t work out how to do something (MIL once went to the GP as she had dye on her hands she couldn’t get off)

I was thinking about this the other day though, and from watching programmes like ambulance I think it’s far more about people who need support being in the community whereas in the last they would’ve been housed in a more supportive environment (institutions I suppose, which weren’t always a good thing) ambulances always have frequent callers, people with serious mental health issues, addicts, elderly people who can’t live in their own home anymore so need frequent assistance, people with dementia who become scared and confused. The ambulance serve is help for them, and they’re pretty reliant on it.

So I guess, looking objectively, we have eased the pressure on some services (residential homes, residential treatment centres) and sent people back into the community to transfer the resource pressure onto the NHS first response teams

People did ring for ambulances more in the 60s and 70s because car ownership was far from universal. There were also more casualty departments and district hospitals, so long transfers were at less common.

Also, people used casualty as something almost entirely for injuries that were beyond home first aid, partly because you could get GP appointments and even home visits much mire readily.

Demand on the NHS and the pressures arising from that have stressed the system in many ways.

Quite often, I will google symptoms and then treat them myself according to the advice or go to the pharmacist. Occasionally I have rung 111 for advice for the dc. You would think that all the information out there would filter out some of the 999 calls.

I recently had to visit an urgent care centre in London and almost no one was registered with a GP, the receptionist was so pleased when I could give my NHS number & GPs address, phone number etc.

I think people were more inclined to be independent if they didn't feel they needed it.
In the 70s I had pneumonia. Dm drove me, she said not certain if I'd survive the car journey. This was 40 minutes drive away through an area she didn't know too well.

More recently Dsis worked in A&E for a while. At 2am on boxing day morning she had to calm down someone who was indignant because they'd been refused an ambulance. Their toe had been hurting since they stubbed it-two weeks ago. It wasn't even vaguely red and no swelling etc.
Having calmed them down, she turned to her next patient who had a sore throat and wanted to be prescribed with pain killers for it. It was better than it had been earlier in the day but she hadn't wanted to miss her Christmas dinner.

We used to be able to get the GP out quite easily back then for a house call if you were too ill for the surgery.

The only time I needed to go to hospital, the GP had been called and he thought it was appendicitis so called the hospital to expect me and my parents drove me in.

Fascinating. From what most people have said, it seems that people were more selective about calling 999 once upon a time; they used their head and decided what to do themselves, for better or for worse.

In today's tick-box culture, I suppose everyone is so much more "accountable" than before, and they know it: schools would call 999 because Ofsted might have a word if they don't; a call handler on 111 is going to say "go to A&E just in case" because it's the safest option, or it's in their script; teachers are less likely to take a child to hospital themselves; and if you make the wrong decision about your child, you face trial by Mumsnet.

Also, with my lack of hospital experience, it was news to me that visiting A&E involved hours and hours of waiting, when I accompanied someone there (for chest pain that could have been critical, but turned out not to be). I suppose I had imagined the right people being on hand straight away, as they might be on TV. After that I realised more what the reality was.

But it seems that a lot of it is knowing your own nearby facilities. For instance, my nearest Minor Injuries unit does X-rays, whereas I've gathered not all of them do. Also "Minor Injuries" is sometimes called "Urgent Care": they don't sound the same at all.

I think minor injuries and urgent care are different, sorry and both are better to go to if you have a sprain or suspected fracture than A&E. I think our local UCC has someone 24/7 to read x-rays whereas minor injuries doesn’t. There will be other examples but that’s the only one I’m aware of.

I lived on a small estate when I was growing up in 60's/70's and lived there until the late 80's. There were a good mix of ages living there and I can honestly say I don't ever recall seeing an ambulance in the street. Where I live now is a similar size estate and mix of ages. It is quite common to see an ambulance here - different properties - and frequently it leaves without taking anyone to hospital. The only difference I can think of (apart from the fact we didn't have a phone to call an ambulance in the 70's) is the ability to get an urgent GP appointment or a home visit from the Doctor. We are 20 miles away from the nearest A&E so people presumably don't want to risk driving there with a sick relative in the car. That said the ambulance cover in this area is appalling and it is actually quicker to drive to the hospital than it is to wait for an ambulance.

I do think lack of access to GPs is the main reason people end up in ambulances and at hospital.

I cannot for love nor money get an appt with my GP. Pretty certain i have an ear infection right now, earliest appt i can get is for 3 weeks from now. Ive called at 8am for an urgent appt the last 3 days, and by the time i get through all the appts are gone. Im hoping it resolves itself as if it gets worse my only option is to go to the walk in at the local hospital and wait several hours.

As a kid late 80s, early 90s if we were unwell, we went to the GP, it was easy and we were treated. If we were really bad, the GP came to us.

Arse-covering probably hasn't helped. If I ever faint at work, a first aider gets called and invariably they call an ambulance, and then I'm not allowed back to work (a bog-standard desk job) until checked out at A&E by a doctor.

Also there used to be more local hospitals as well as GPs - the only time my parents called 999 they were told the cottage hospital could stitch my head, which was close enough my parents could drive. Though as a younger adult I ended up in A&E half a dozen times because I couldn't get a GP appt to get a prescription renewed, with bad side effects if I ran out.

I wonder how much impact multiple calls have - once I was on a driving lesson, we passed a crash and my instructor called 999. Turned out 3 people had already called about it.

Out of hours services being rubbish doesn't help either - I've only heard MrNC shout a couple times and one was at ooh doc on the phone. I think it was a doc from 111 who came out to me, with the ooh calling back about four hours later.

I grew up in the 60s/70s on a local estate and can't recall ever seeing an ambulance in the streets round us. The doctor would make house calls if you were very ill.
It was rare for anyone to be admitted to hospital. When my father was admitted after a stroke in the 70s, it was the first time I'd known anyone be in hospital.

The only times I remember an ambulance for our 7 person family was a sister who dislocated a knee playing hockey, and a bad anaphylactic reaction to a bee sting.
Babies, stitches, even the odd car accident didn’t warrant it for some reason. The district nurse used to deal with most things while looking unimpressed.
And no one we knew took drugs or got drunk & fell over. It was a long time ago.

We were a lot tougher back in the day! You’d have to be more than half dead before anyone would consider calling an ambulance. I broke my arm when I was 4, back in the 1950’s. My mother refused to believe it was broken. We had no phone and she wouldn’t countenance disturbing the GP.
My teenage cousin, a student nurse, took me on two buses to our distant hospital, where I was kept in for a week and had two ops under GA to stabilise the fracture.
When friends were injured at school, the headmistress drove them to hospital in her car. I never saw an ambulance in our neighbourhood through my entire childhood.

I was a child of the late 1940's/50's and from what I remember, you would have to have something pretty seriously wrong with you to call an ambulance and think people these days call for far less serious reasons.

I cannot for love nor money get an appt with my GP. Pretty certain i have an ear infection right now, earliest appt i can get is for 3 weeks from now. Ive called at 8am for an urgent appt the last 3 days, and by the time i get through all the appts are gone.

Have you tried 111? I called them about an infection because I wasn't sure if or when I should see a GP - I spoke to a 111 nurse and they contacted my surgery, so when I called when the lines opened in the morning, they were expecting my call, and kept a slot open for me for that day. I was quite impressed with that service.

When it comes to calling ambulances - medicine has changed a lot, too. We had a man with chest pains at work, and the paramedics could do an ECG then and there, so he didn't have to go to A&E in the end, but see his GP in a slightly less urgent way with the ECG print-out. That sort of treatment wouldn't have been possible a few years ago - he'd have had to go to hospital for the checks.

I assume it means the ambulance crew can see more cases, because they don't always have to go right back to the hospital.

I was well impressed with their kit.

Everything is more centralised now which we are told is supposed to be better but actually I'm not sure it is. In years gone by, there was a local doctor, a local hospital etc. There was the larger, more specialised hospital if needed but most things could be dealt with locally. I'm guessing this wasn't very cost effective though. But I'm also not sure how cost effective it is to use first response personnel to handle day to day illnesses.

Babdoc that sounds like a rubbish call on your mum's side TBH, rather than "being tougher". What if your cousin hadn't been on hand.

I remember at school quite a lot girls being told to "play on" when they had broken fingers.

I got told off by a&e because they thought I was "after an xray" when I had a broken wrist, it later turned out that yes it was broken. Not that time - they sent me away.

Seems children and broken bones are a general cause for disbelief and inaction irrepective of when!

Nothingontelly makes a good point, a lot of this really is about care being inferior in the 70s/80s. Permanent damage from bones healing poorly, people dying from heart attacks/ strokes identified too late, elderly people dying at the bottom of the stairs after a fall.