Waiting for an ambulance

[BigcatLittlecat]

I called an ambulance for my elderly mother at 4.45. Got told it's a long wait and to not call back. She fell off her bed and think she has broken her hip. She's in a lot of pain. What can I do, apart from call 999 back?

DO NOT MOVE HER.

support her with pillows and keep her warm like a pp suggested up thread.

How awful 😢

George "Then last week an ambulance was called to an elderly neighbour. The ambulance was outside for 2 hours. The paramedics then wheeled the patient out in a wheelchair into the ambulance. Then a further hour till.they drove off. So that was 3 hours . What the fuck were they doing?."

I can account for some of this. Firstly, there's what the ambulance crew are qualified to do. Secondly, they might have needed to wait for a doctor to call them to advise. Thirdly, the patient might not be fit to be moved. On one ambulance call, mum's heart rate was so high they didn't even want to move her from the floor for 45 mins. They and I thought she was a goner.

I've dealt with a few ambulance calls for my parents. They are always super helpful and I've never seen them waste time.

OP is in the thick of it now but sorry to say, the current state of things, her mum might be more comfortable on the floor at home with access to painkillers, than on a trolley in A&E. it's bloody shocking and I wish I could do something.

even 10 years ago, i had a contact with a compound fracture, bones sticking out of his leg, so no one could safely move him, who had to wait 5 hours for an ambulance.

Approx 18 months ago my grandad had a fall, was in excruciating pain, called 999 who gave no indication of wait times. We ended up waiting 10 hours, crew that arrived were disgusted that he had been left so long, he'd fractured his pelvis. 5 days later he was discharged into my care, they'd told me he was able to weight bare, walk, etc couldn't see for myself as no-one was allowed in the hospital due to covid! Ambulance brought him home & it was at that point we discovered we'd been lied to in order to free up a bed, he was in agony & still unable to weight bare. Took weeks for him to regain some mobility, so I had to do everything for him, whilst looking after a newborn baby & disabled teenager (hospital were aware of our home situation).

Another time approx 6 months ago, DH had severe chest pains. Called 111 they said hang up & call 999, it took 15 minutes for them to answer. Luckily all turned out ok but the thought of someone dealing with a life or death situation & being stuck on hold for 15 mins, it's shocking.

Often the ambulance has taken so long to come that the patient has deteriorated. So then they have to spend hours in the house stabilising the patient before they can be moved. After my Nan lay on the floor for five hours she deteriorated badly and it took the paramedics 90 minutes to stabilise her enough to move. Then the move stressed her and they had to spend a further 45 mins stabilising her again in the ambulance before they could drive away. I should add, if the ambulance had arrived more quickly she wouldn’t have deteriorated and none of this would have been necessary!

Thank you. So when you say fewer beds, do you literally mean beds have physically been removed from hospital wards? Is that because there simply isn’t the ratio of staff per bed there once was?

Is this Brexit, ie lots of hard working European medics have left the profession/country? How are we going to quickly increase staffing levels with a growing (ageing) population?

I agree it's a ploy and I can't understand why they don't just get on and do something. Even if they think a France style system (for example) won't be popular, the extreme suffering we have now is horrific.

This ^

One of my nearest and dearest (a young person) is currently very ill in hospital after a serious assault on them.

The treatment has been dire and in my opinion, life threatening.

I'm so, so angry. Reading these posts makes me more so. I'm thinking of starting some kind of meaningful campaign. We can't afford to wait 2 more years for this government to be out and to start to get the mess of our NHS and care system sorted.

People are literally dying and all the media is doing us running stories about the royal family and vacuous celebrities. We should be channelling our fury and demanding change right now.

Who's with me ?

@kkr168 yes they have a tendency to discharge people who can’t look after themselves because they need the bed. They sent my Nan home and she could barely shuffle with a walker, but they thought she could cook meals and wash herself! Of course I had to fetch her to my house for a further two weeks and I had to take time off work to cook for her and help her in the shower and put her clothes on. She wouldn’t have coped on her own, I don’t know what the hell they were thinking.

A 12 year old girl was knocked down by a car outside my house last week. She was lying in the road and the person who phoned was told there was no ambulance available. After a while someone drove her. When I was a kid I remember being told if someone was in an accident you don't move them as you could injure them further. Little did I know that 40 years later it would be a choice between moving them or leaving them lying in a busy road for hours. Thanks Tories

I'd like to make a suggestion. A mothballed area gets opened and beds with clean linen provided. One nurse and one cleaner is allocated and a quarter of the paramedics help. Perhaps the CEO can do the odd shift to make teas for relatives. The people in there are safeguarded and can be given sufficient pain relief to keep them comfortable. That would free up ambulances to ensure other vulnerable people can receive pain relief.

Think out of the box and fuck some of the jobsworth bureaucracy that blocks the system.

Brexit didn't send nurses back any European nurse already here could have applied for pre-settled status. The skilled worker visa scheme has made it much easier for skilled workers from across the world to come to the UK. I'm not aware that most foreign NHS staff are/were European in any event.

By increasing immigration and by not making it as difficult as humanly possible for people to come here to work in the NHS. There aren’t a lot of other options. The government started making some sympathetic noises about doing that but I think it’s a way off. And it’s not like the U.K. is a particularly attractive place to emigrate to at the moment.

not sure what we do about the burden of covid on staffing in hospitals and nursing homes. I don’t see this government making any attempt to try and reduce circulating levels or convince people that taking reasonable precautions this winter is a good idea. They’d have to roll back all the messaging they did about covid being over and just like flu now and then explain why that was an oversimplification.

It's easier for everyone to come here than under the skilled worker scheme than ever it was under the tier 2 scheme.

We lost a number of staff because of Brexit. Because the staff members felt that the vote for Brexit was not so much a slap in their face as a kick in their bollocks. So they decided to work back home where they were actually wanted.

My partner has been a paramedic for 19 years. When he started they had time between jobs to rest, they had time to eat and de-stress after terrible jobs. It's now relentless he is going to quit soon because of the awful pressure. The Conservatives have destroyed the NHS and they are doing it deliberately to bring in private medicine because they and their friends will make out billions from it.
Please please please understand what is happening before it gets much worse.

The Conservatives have destroyed the NHS and they are doing it deliberately to bring in private medicine because they and their friends will make out billions from it
Exactly

Brexit had nothing to do with individuals and everything to do with a federal Europe which in any event is beginning to implode and many European economies are in fact worse off economically than the UK, for example, Germany. Perhaps if they had experienced a better working culture and less bullying and toxicity in the NHS they'd have stayed.

Funny you say they felt it was a slap in the face and felt unwanted. All my staff applied for settled status and were glad to do so.

I would fully support a social insurance scheme as exists in: France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, etc. All those countries that the UK should emulate as part of the EEC. If everything about the EEC is so fab then why aren't the NHS workers who bray about Brexit keen to operate services as they are operated in Europe?

It’s easier to go and work elsewhere than apply for pre settled status. So lots went home or somewhere else in the EU.
Combine that with high workload, burnout and low pay, particularly in the social care sector it’s a recipe for disaster.

Interesting that people have mentioned being re-admitted. That used to be a big thing hospitals were judged on IIRC. Would be interesting to see those stats for the last 5 years or so. I suspect it would be yet another indicator of how much the healthcare system in this country is struggling.

I work in social care and the issue is around staffing. Corporate profit driven care companies don’t help, but there are also lots of small social enterprise type companies who do want to to a good job. There are no staff. The govt will not fund LAs at a rate that is needed to recruit. So a lot of companies are handing back contracts because they can’t fulfil them or just not taking on new people who need care.

So private health care won’t really help. What we are seeing is the collapse of social care & the impact that has. Anyone working in the sector can tell you this is the worst it has ever been.

I really hope your mum is okay OP. Just too many of these stories now.

It was not difficult to apply for pre or settled status. Were trusts not helping NHS staff to do this. We had presentations from local lawyers and worked collaboratively with CAB and the local authority.

Maybe people didn’t like the Brexit vibe.

The Financial Times article mentioned earlier in the thread made the point that within a few years a number of Eastern European countries will be overtaking the UK on wages/measures of equality etc. maybe people noticed they could get a better quality of life back home & returned.

I recently returned from a trip to Western Europe and it was like the land of plenty compared to here.

I think we need to fix social care first. But we’re still waiting for The oven ready plan. Johnson said it would be a piece of piss to fix social care

The other night I had to call for an ambulance for my partner who had fallen at home and very clearly broken his ankle badly. He was in agony on the floor, there was no way I could move him. 999 told me there were no ambulances and to try 111. WtF? That was a moment of absolute panic for me and I had no idea what to do, he was crying out in pain (normally very stoic).

I tried 111 and they said someone would call back.

I tried 999 again and was told no ambulances.
I put my partner on the phone and they told him they would do their best but no ambulances.

Thank god, ambulance came about 2 hours later because I was so worried by then...he was in shock, sweating and nauseated, shaking. With a severe fracture like that there's a risk of blood clots.
From then on he was looked after incredibly well, no wait in A&E to be seen but 18 hour wait to be taken to ward (he needed surgery).

That utter blind panic though...someone with a very severe injury being told there are no ambulances at all...how has it come to this? What on earth do you do if no ambulance comes?

Had the same thing a few years ago when my special needs son broke his leg, really badly, the bone had moved up alongside itself. This was at around 1:30 in the afternoon. Three hours for an ambulance to come, so all he had until then was calpol, then another two to get his leg in a splint and moved into the ambulance. By the time we got to hospital it was too late to operate that day and they had to manipulate his leg and put it in a temporary cast before an operation the next day. Apparently this is not normally done on children as it’s horribly painful. They could have operated that night but thought it would be better to wait until morning for the usual staff. You would think they would have a competent team for all hours in a decent hospital. They even suggested we take him home overnight as it was in the height of covid, ridiculous! Luckily someone overruled that stupid idea. He’s not been able to sleep with the light off since this ordeal. I really despair about the state of things now and pray that nothing like this happens again because the healthcare system is rotten and broken.

@BigcatLittlecat I hope that by now your mum is receiving the care she needs.

A good tip from a pp about placing a towel underneath the person so that they can relieve themselves, at home & with some dignity, rather than in the ambulance.

When my mum was picked by an ambulance - she was a frequent flyer in her later years - the ambulance crew took time to stabilise her & run tests so that the handover at A&E was efficient. The only time they took off at speed with blue lights flashing was when she had signs of a stroke. Always impressed by our ambulance services.

St John’s Ambulances came out in force during Covid round here. We live on the route into a major hospital & during peak Covid, the ambulances were belting past with flashing blue lights.

Nightingale Hospitals - all that effort & money, have they just been mothballed?
Can they provide convalescent & outpatient services to free up essential beds in hospitals?

They are trialling this in some hospitals atm, although not a quarter of the paramedics, just a few.