Needing an ambulance/urgent medical care would terrify me just now - NHS on its knees

[pastypirate]

Anyone else? We don't have complex medical needs in the family but anything just now needing medical care really frightens me due to wait times and ambulances never coming and so on. Not a complaint nhs workers doing their best in terrible circumstances,

Is it as bad as it seems?

My elderly sister broke her hip in December and waited 5 hours on the floor for an ambulance. Big town in the south.

There was a very bad car and moped accident down the road from me last night. It’s within 500m of the entrance to a major regional hospital and it took well over an hour, some reports say two, for an ambulance to arrive for the severely injured casualty in the road. That has shaken me.

Depends on your area and priority level. I have 2 auto immune conditions and recently the longest I’ve waited is an hour.

My dad had a heart attack the week before Christmas, the ambulance took 45 mins to get to him, but they did say if he got worse to ring them back and he would be bumped up the queue. Pre covid that time would have been horrifying but we all actually went “oh that’s not too bad considering”.

His cardiac referral got lost so his treatment was delayed by 2 or 3 days and he was waiting for a bed, first for the assessment unit for around 24 hours then 2 or 3 days for the cardiac ward. They also forgot to covid test him until he’d been in for 4 days.

Choking 17 month old. We were quoted an hour. The system is shit.
I know for a fact that private ambulances are being used in a neighbouring county because there aren't enough ambulances.

@EnrouteNOTonroute

If you were desperately unwell then you’d still be seen promptly It’s if it weren’t life or death where it’d be a loooong wait probably

I assume you didn't read the terrifying thread the other day where someone's dad was having a heart attack and were told that the ambulance service couldn't help?

My mum (80) had a fall in yet another county when she was shopping. Actually someone knocked her over. She was alone. Needed all kinds of tests. She has lots of health issues. Told it would be six hours.

A couple of weeks ago we were on OPEL 4 alert. It has reduced since then to 3. Ambulances were queuing outside hospitals for up to 7/8 hours. These were for non-life threatening patients.

My grandma had a fall early December, broke her hip. Was stuck on the floor for 13 hours before ambulance came, then in a&e alone for several hours wait. Following that she was in a ward with no visitors for 2 weeks; she has dementia and the lack of contact or stimulation has been catastrophic. She had surgery after a day on the ward but no physio plan and lost the ability to walk.. she then moved to a nursing home as couldn’t return home and for 2 days we didn’t know where she was. Then finally found out and still no visitors for another 2 weeks. She is now in a nursing home, bed bound, and the muscle wastage is so extreme she cannot sit up unaided or even feed herself.. they think she will die in under 6 months. My heart is broken 😞 xo

@TrufflesAndToast

There was a very bad car and moped accident down the road from me last night. It’s within 500m of the entrance to a major regional hospital and it took well over an hour, some reports say two, for an ambulance to arrive for the severely injured casualty in the road. That has shaken me.

I am not sure if I am correct here but ambulances are not dispatched from hospital? They are dispatched from ambulance stations. At least this is how I understand the LAS works.

The problem of course remains, an ambulance needs to get back to it's station to be cleaned and restocked before the next emergency call. It just may not be as simple as there were ambulances 500m away from an accident site?

(I also believe there is protocol for ambulances if they encounter an emergency, that isn't the one they are on route to attend, depending on seriousness)

I got really interested in the LAS when my mum collapsed - she sadly died, after paramedics tried to revive her for over an hour. FWIW ambulance #1 was there within 10 minutes and several other teams joined. This was in latter part of 2020.

I am sure there was an AMA from a paramedic, I am off to look.

@EnrouteNOTonroute

If you were desperately unwell then you’d still be seen promptly It’s if it weren’t life or death where it’d be a loooong wait probably

My father was left asleep on the floor waiting 11 hours for an ambulance. His funeral is tomorrow.

@Liverbird77

Choking 17 month old. We were quoted an hour. The system is shit. I know for a fact that private ambulances are being used in a neighbouring county because there aren't enough ambulances.

I bought the dds jars of boiled sweets for Xmas. They arnt 17 months but still need caution. I told them they eat them sitting down because 'if you choke the ambulance won't get here in time to save you' I wasn't kidding or exaggerating. How bloody terrifying for you x

@cr

@Crunchymum I used to work as a paramedic in LAS, the ambulance service has its own control, the hospital's have nothing to do with assigning calls. Although ambulance crews start and finish at their own stations they will spend most of the shift recieving calls whilst in the hospital because they will inform control they are clear and immediately be given another call. You only see your station at the start and end of your shift. You don't deep clean the entire ambulance interior between patients either, just wipe patient contact areas with clinel wipes before going clear at hospital. If it needs mopping out/deep cleaning/restocking then you go to nearest station to do so. It works the same in the trust I work for now. The problem with an rtc directly outside hospital grounds is that even though there may be ambulances outside a&e they will probably have patients waiting inside them so the crews are not available to go to the RTC and may not be for hours. We were regularly stuck outside a&e with the same patient for entire 12 hour shifts and handing them over to the crew working the opposite shift who would arrive in a taxi to relieve us pre-covid.

I spent 3-4 hours in a queue of trolleys in a corridor before Christmas, waiting for a bed to become available on the ward. I was well looked after by the ambulance crew who brought me in but that meant during all that time they couldn’t be out attending to other calls.

In hospital subsequently a few days ago I was told the problem is lack of care available at home for patients who are otherwise ready to be discharged.

I did spend quite a scary Christmas as I was losing half a pint of blood a day which is too much really and my urgent op had been cancelled - if I had needed an ambulance again for escalating bleeding I couldn’t be confident it could have got to me in time.

(I am fine now btw, it was an incredibly simple and easily sorted problem which should have been dealt with in a timely manner thus avoiding me ever needing an ambulance in the first place.

We don’t spend enough on healthcare. Simple. It’s not the only problem with the NHS but it underlies everything else.

So much of my experience has involved inefficiencies caused by lack of resources at certain points having a knock on effect elsewhere.

thefelineofthespecies, I am so sorry about your father x

[quote Tigger85]@Crunchymum I used to work as a paramedic in LAS, the ambulance service has its own control, the hospital's have nothing to do with assigning calls. Although ambulance crews start and finish at their own stations they will spend most of the shift recieving calls whilst in the hospital because they will inform control they are clear and immediately be given another call. You only see your station at the start and end of your shift. You don't deep clean the entire ambulance interior between patients either, just wipe patient contact areas with clinel wipes before going clear at hospital. If it needs mopping out/deep cleaning/restocking then you go to nearest station to do so. It works the same in the trust I work for now. The problem with an rtc directly outside hospital grounds is that even though there may be ambulances outside a&e they will probably have patients waiting inside them so the crews are not available to go to the RTC and may not be for hours. We were regularly stuck outside a&e with the same patient for entire 12 hour shifts and handing them over to the crew working the opposite shift who would arrive in a taxi to relieve us pre-covid.[/quote]
This is fascinating and very helpful, thanks!

I'd love someone in your profession to do an AMA (the one I found was from 2018 / 2019). I realise it's the last thing you guys would have time to do.

We where lucky, my Mum fell down the stairs and was unconscious just before Christmas. Ambulance arrived in minutes, spent an hour stabilising her then to hospital where she was treated brilliantly and quickly. Follow ups so far have also been spot on.

There were 18 ambulances waiting outside my local hospital just before Christmas. We drive past regularly and the minimum we see is 6 or 7 ambulances waiting outside A and E.
I have CHD and needed A and E 3 weeks ago. I had seen and read about wait times for an ambulance so My SIL drove me there and I was triaged and seen within minutes . I felt guilty that I was given a bed straight away after seeing everyone in the waiting room but I was having a cardiac episode and needed the help. I'm lucky that I live so close to the hospital and had transport.

Major incidents declared at Blackpool and Morecambe Bay today, Preston won't be far behind with 10% staff currently on sick leave or isolating. Definitely wouldn't want to have a medical emergency in the near future.

Local trauma centre was closed to new admissions on NYD, ambulances were taking to next available a&e which was another 30 miles further (from my location) and there were 2 hours waits for anything immediately non life threatening.
Ambulance crews were seeing and treating anything they could, and the ambulance wait times I've experienced and have heard of (work in social care, lots of friends in social care) over Christmas/New Year haven't been that bad, but we do only ring 999 in cases of residents without DNaR's that we are actively doing CPR on, head injuries, falls with obvious breaks etc. Everything else is through 111 - they often send ambulances though, where obviously the wait time is longer as the priority is lower, and they are usually admissions.
Have had a paramedic arrive to administer end of life medication in the last year, as no one else available and we'd gone through 111 for help.
It's frightening at times, but, I'm grateful that there's still people out there doing the job (paramedics, techs, Dr's, nurses, HCA's, etc) around emergency medicine, because the stress and pressure must be immense at the moment. They've been thrown under the bus as have the rest of us.

@Sirzy

We where lucky, my Mum fell down the stairs and was unconscious just before Christmas. Ambulance arrived in minutes, spent an hour stabilising her then to hospital where she was treated brilliantly and quickly. Follow ups so far have also been spot on.

Exact same scenario here, ambulance arrived very quickly. However it took almost half an hour to get through to an operator on 999 which I found very traumatic. What I can work out from notes is that it took about two hours at hospital to get treated inside. Everything following that has been incredible.

I'm 42 and, while I'm not a health professional myself, have many friends who are doctors/nurses/midwives/paramedics etc.

The NHS has been 'on its knees' for at least a decade, IMO (probably longer), but as far as I can see (and based on input from HCP friends), if you require life-saving care urgently, you will be seen and attended to.

However, in saying this, I - a life-long Left thinker/voter from a family of socialists - took out private healthcare insurance last year. Make of that what you will.

I think it's the luck of the draw and somewhat location dependent.

My mum is 83 and was unwell in the couple of weeks before Christmas (infection causing haematoma due to blood thinners). Managed to see a paramedic practitioner, GP, OOH and then GP again, blood tests and two lots of antibiotics in the space of 6 days.

It was struggle to get to the bottom of the issue and put her mind at rest but in terms of being seen promptly can't complain.

My friends husband had classic heart attack symptoms, 999 said they didn’t think it was a heart attack and the ambulance would take 2 hours to come to him. They told him to make his own way to hospital. In the hospital waiting room the pain intensified and it transpired he had a heart attack, 2 arteries were blocked and the delay in treatment resulted in blood clots forming. He almost didn’t make it.

Good luck to anyone who needs emergency care at the moment, as some areas have severe issues.