This is so sad ( ambulance delays)

[Ratched]

Read this earlier and thought how terrible to be so aware that no one was coming to help in time....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61791151

It's shocking. Covid is not the only reason, either. I don't think our government cares very much.

We can only go by what the caller is telling us. Symptoms can be exaggerated. I had a man say his wife was unconscious the other day, I asked who was speaking in the background, 'my wife' he said.

Some people will insist they are fighting for breath (whilst shouting at us on the phone) and have chest pain. That's a 999. We are always looking for signs of sepsis and will refer to the ambulance service if we find red flags. Its not worth the risk.

Unfortunately we aren't supported very well so we err on the side of caution always.

Personally speaking I work at a GP surgery & due to the very long waits at local hospitals, we use a private ultrasound scanning company who have been given an NHS contract by our local authority. So yes, a GP can arrange an urgent scan themselves here. A friend who lives 10 miles away in a different health authority was however told to present at A&E for an urgent scan.

I hope this doesn't sound too flippant for this thread but all these Mumnetters who refuse to answer a knock at the door unless they are expecting someone should read these stories and understand quite often it is neighbours people call on when they are desperate for help. We need to look after each other as its obvious we can't necessarily rely on the emergency services to be there for us.

My son nearly died at just 2 weeks old. He vomited and so I called 111 while I was helping him clear it and he was coughing it up. It became clear within a few minutes he wasn’t going to clear it so screamed to DP to get in the car.

Thankfully we are only a few minutes of foot to the ground driving to reach our local hospital with 24hr urgent care. By then he was barely gurgling, pale, floppy, he had given up.

I ran through the door crying, receptionist screamed emergency and he was grabbed out of my arms. Thankfully they suctioned his airways clear and stabilised him; and called for transfer to nearest paed A&E.

Its only then I found out he wouldn’t have made it if I had called 999. All our local ambulances have been cut and allocated to be stationed at another city. The fastest they can get here is now 20 minutes and that’s immediately available Cat 1 on clear roads with blue lights.

The paramedics and local hospital only told me this because he survived and they wanted me to know for a repeat event. It’s hardly something you would tell a grieving person - so it pales me to think how many have died as a result of this cutback and don’t even know.

You may think we live in the middle of nowhere. But no - it’s a town of over 100,000 and one of the fastest growing in the U.K. Disgraceful.

This is not correct anymore.

The days of just getting an ambulance because you call and say the 'correct' scripted thing have passed as clinical contact centres now have two tiers of call takers, the traditional medically unqualified ones doing a rapid triage following a script then the clinical desk managed by experienced HCPs (5 years + post qualification experience paramedics and nurses under supervision of an advanced practitioner) discussing things further, and advising self care, own transport or escalating a call up or bumping it down the queue as appropriate.

Given the current crisis state we are in, we all need to be thinking through emergency plans and discussing them ahead of time. Things liked

Talking to neighbours who have cars
Keeping an emergency taxi fund
If you have a car, always having a designated driver if anyone is drinking.
If you live a long distance from hospital, make sure you have enough fuel to get to hospital without stopping.
Stocking first aid kits/medical cabinets, so you can buy time in an emergency (aspirin is a wonder drug in heart attacks, and chlorphenamine can help ease even a severe allergic reaction for a time).

A year or so ago, my DH was at work when a work colleague fell and badly cut their head open. They called an ambulance and were told straight away it wouldn't be able to come out, immediately. (Cental London) I think after about 2 hours the hospital arranged for a taxi to collect him, and an Addison Lee cab arrived.

The number of attendees has gone up and yes some are patients who should go to a GP, some can’t and some choose not to. The number of acutely unwell patients has increased, these are the patients who require so much more care, medicine has done an amazing job of extending lives so more people survive what would have killed them. That’s amazing but comes with it’s own issues. Treating those patients becomes complex and many need packages of care or care homes which take far too long to put in place. Therefore those waiting on these packages cannot go home and remain on the ward, someone waiting in A&E cannot go upstairs until that patient has gone. That means the ambulances cannot offload because A&E is over capacity. The staff are essentially working on a ward in an emergency department. No one has a clue how to resolve this and just expect A&E to take in a few more patients. It all has a knock on effect. When I was a kid when my grandparents were ill my mum looked after them. Society has changed, some women want to work and some have to work and so society has to provide more care than it did previously. It’s not just here, my step dad needed an urgent angio procedure in New Zealand and was told it was 5 months for an urgent one. We like to pretend every other country is better but the reality is they all come with downsides, whether it’s inaccessibility due to financial constraints and insurance or waiting times or quality of care. Staff are leaving because they are expected to work in highly pressured circumstances with no end in sight.

I read the story and was in tears but the scary and depressing thing is how long it would take to change things.
Ambulances are taking a long time because they can't get people unloaded and seen at A and E.
A and E is under pressure because they can't get people on to wards
Lots of beds on the wards are occupied by people who can't get a care package.

-care (in care homes and visiting carers) is underpaid and undervalued and there are not enough carers (possibly not helped by brexit) Also as the number of elderly people needing care is increasing.

• Having more urgent care centres and GPS would improve the situation....but where are the GPS and staff for this going to come from?

You can't just "recruit" a Dr or nurse - they need to be trained which takes time and money ...and although carers need less qualifications, the pay and working condions are not great. You could probably earn the same in retail or hospitality with far less stress.

When I was a kid when my grandparents were ill my mum looked after them.

I think this is tied in to your previous point about people living with, or surviving, conditions that in previous generations would have killed them at an earlier age.
I've read lots of threads where people say "of course" they would care for their elderly relative and putting them in a home is selfish etc. But reality is in previous generations "looking after someone at home" was probably looking after someone with far less complex needs. People aren't in care homes because they can't manage to do their shopping, cooking or cleaning, many are doubly incontinent, need a hoist to be moved, can't feed themselves, might be aggressive or dangerous due to dementia - things that are much harder to manage in your own home, even if someone is available 24/7.

Absolutely rubbish. Stop trying to guilt trip people with social anxiety.

I’ve been that neighbour asking for help. You don’t just give a polite knock on the door and leave if you don’t get an answer. You pound on the door while shouting for help. Trust me, the person inside can tell the difference between that and a god-botherer!

That may be your experience but it isn't the experience of everybody. We had a knock on the door, I wouldn't have even heard it if the dig didn't start barking. An elderly lady from up the street who I didnt even know said very calmly and politely "I'm very sorry to bother you but my husband hs had a little accident would you be able to help me get him in the car to take him to hospital" I went round there expecting very little drama to find a man in his 80s who had fallen off the garage roof onto concrete blood pouring from his head and two very obviously broken arms.

People don't always react to emergencies in the way you would expect and I would rather say a polite "no thank you" and shut the door on a God bothered than ignore people but maybe thats just me.

Hospitals are breaking.

when we had to take DD last week there was at least 8/9 ambulance crews waiting for well over an hour to hand over their patients.

we’re having to seriously consider moving because the hospital here is full to capacity all the time and our DD has serious care needs. I ended up doing three things last week that should have been done by a medical professional but ended up with being told “someone will be along soon. Please don’t take it upon yourself to do x y and z. I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you did but I have to tell you that you really shouldn’t…”

When ambulance services are so busy they can’t get to people in time people understand that they are working as hard as they can but there aren’t enough of them/their stuck in a and

when Gp practices are so busy that they can’t offer appointments in a decent timescale everyone thinks there lazy

20%more Gp appointments than pre pandemic with a smaller workforce. Demand still outstrips this. Yet we’re lazy. The service isn’t good enough but that’s because there aren’t enough GPs to provide appointments for all the people who want them.

(Trainee GP here - recently did a home visit to a patient claiming shortness of breath to find out actually her electric had been cut off and she wanted me to sort)