Catastrophic state of the ambulance service: what's behind it?

[tulips27]

Seeing the shocking and upsetting thread where the OP has been waiting for over 24 hours for an ambulance for her relative who has a broken hip I want to ask what has cause this state of affairs? How can this be possible in our country? Can anyone offer any insight?

(Link to the thread for those who have not seen it: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4701431-i-know-iabu-blatantly-using-this-for-traffic-emergency-situation-no-ambulance-still-and-need-advice )

I can not believe the unions are now not confirming that they will definitely cover category 1 emergencies - ie life and death calls will be ignored. To me this is utterly scandalous, and they will have blood on their hands this time tomorrow.

You can NOT use the public's lives as a gun to the head and force a completely unaffordable pay increase. Of course they deserve a raise but not like this, and not just before Christmas when the health service is already on its knees.
It is utterly utterly despicable.

We are being held to ransom. God help anyone that is seriously injured or ill tomorrow.

As for the ambulance service, it was exactly like this forty years ago when my grandfather died in the winter waiting hours for an ambulance, this is nothing new people!! The NHS buckles every single bloody winter.

We need a wholesale change of tactic and fast before we lose thousands of patients that could have otherwise been saved.

My confidence now in paramedics and ambulance workers and anyone else choosing to ignore category 1 call outs is at all time low.

Than you.

It just needs a little arrow to show 'tories get into power' so that even the really uninitiated can't ignore it.

30 years ago was also Tories. That’s why one of Labour’s key messages in 1997 was “24 hours to save the NHS”

So why didn’t they? Absolutely nothing changed for the service during labour government.

Havent read the thread but am willing to bet not many posters have mentioned the vaccine mandates.

Agree social care is a big issue

I was for the NI increase but it was removed unfortunately

The other thing that seems difficult is social care is not actually cheap to the user, it can take a whole asset in fees if it’s many years. Whereas staff pay is low, not even sure profit is good.

Social care for an elderly person for years is very expensive

I think it begins and ends with social care. My DM dying over the summer with zero social care support - as there literally were no staff - opened my eyes.

In hospitals bed blocking us a huge issue, so patients from A&E can't be quickly admitted, ambulances then get stuck waiting to offload patients, leading to higher stress, poor quality care, staff then leaving...

We have 70 million people living here now!!!!! 30 years ago it was NOTHING like the situation we now have.
We can't do it any longer. Clearly.
It is mathematically impossible to now support a population that is ageing with multiple complex health issues in a hugely expanded free for all health service that does everything from wart removal to complex brain and heart surgery and every single thing in between.

We need a new model, and the faster we can accept that fact, as even Wes Streeting has pointed out this week the quicker we will reach a solution.

Agree and it might even be Labour who suggests it after all.

So why don’t they just give them a pay rise and be done with it? The government is making a deliberate choice not to increase pay and improve conditions.

What vaccines?

I am Social worker worker I’m adult care. We are in crisis.
All of our domiciliary care was outsourced years ago. Private care agencies have no capacity, can charge LAs as much as they like and then carers are paid minimum wage or less for those agencies who don’t pay for travel time. So they can’t recruit. We have people waiting for a care package for a year plus.
So people are having to live without care, increasing the risks of falls and hospital admission. There are no care packages available to discharge people.
Care homes are either full, or not staffed enough to keep beds open. If we can find placements, people are placed up to 50 miles away from where they live. People are having to go to care homes because there are no packages of care. Families are often reluctant to use care homes anyway, because of the fees. Even if they are LA funded, the LA will only pay up to a certain amount which is less than most care homes charge- again private, profit making care agencies. Families often unable or unwilling to provide care to their relatives.
We have 400 people on the waiting list for assessments, another 400 who have had had assessments and are waiting care. Then the crisis cases supersede them. I have had people sleeping in chairs because they can’t get to beds, incontinent, not mobile and no care.
It is an impossible, demoralising shit show.

Many years ago we had places called convalescent homes. These were for people who were recovering from serious illness and operations but didn't need a hospital bed, but weren't quite well enough to return home. Most people stayed for about a week just to recover their strength etc. How could we do this decades ago but not now.

There is an NHS worker on another thread who is dealing with 15+ patients with fractures due to slipping on ice. I see plenty of patient blaming on here but council blaming for not gritting pavements? Hah Tumble weed.

And by the way it is about to get a whole lot WORSE not better!

The baby boomers are now hitting an infirm age, look at the stats for 2025 and beyond and feel the blood drain out of your face. All the hip, knee replacements that will be needed, endless appointments, heart issues and many more besides. Not to mention the cancer upswing. And by the way these are the same people sitting in huge paid for houses with golden triple locked pensions that have no intention of contributing more for all of this.

It is going to blow in the next five years.

There is no health care, transport, heating top ups, housing, investment in young people and they are expected to be footing the huge tax bills to resource all of this!
We can't get near our doctors it is overrun with pensioners. And I am someone that is not young anymore, but I can't see how the young people will tolerate this for much longer. Seriously. Something major needs to happen and soon.

This time last year, the Government made care homes sack anyone who wouldn't have the Covid vaccine.

I'm 100% pro-vaccine, but this was insane. Yes, in an ideal world, all care workers should be immune to Covid, to protect patients. But you have got to look at the balance of risks. By Dec 2021, many care workers would have had a lot of natural immunity. The risks of leaving care homes short of staff were much greater than the risks of allowing unvaccinated staff to continue work.

They almost did the same with the NHS, but bottled it at the last minute, fortunately.

I can't believe anyone still uses that term. I was taught "delayed discharge" and that was years ago.

Yep 💯 this

The Tories. What we're seeing now is the culmination of 12 years of austerity and chronic underfunding. And there's still another two years to go until we can get rid of them.

19% are you serious?
Same for nurses?
Junior doctors?
Civil servants?
And all the rest?

Where exactly is the magic money tree?
It will bankrupt our country over night.

Yes, this is a big part of the problem. As I posted above, Germany has 5 times as many hospital beds as us. They have about double the number of acute beds but the big difference is in convalescent/lower intensity beds - they have lots, we have virtually none.

People, especially older people, do not go from very sick to 100% fine overnight. Convalescence has always been an important part of healthcare, until a bunch of 30 year old policy wonks in NHS England and the DHSC decided that everyone convalescing should just be looked after in their own home - great in theory, but highly inefficient, plus impractical if you don't have family to do the caring.

I completely agree things like gritting pavements as well as clearing wet soggy leaves would really help but it goes back to money. It’s another thing the local authority has to be pay for and most of them can barely fulfil their basic statutory duties let alone nice to haves.

so many interlinked issues!

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow I just wanted to clarify you was speaking about covid vaccines before I replied.

These issues have been happening long before covid so that's not the reason for staff shortages.

How does Germany fund their convalescent bed places? Can we emulate it?

Well
Do what the older people did?
Willingly pay taxes for the NHS

Top tax band was 90 ( or 95?) percent after the Second World War

Tax rates are at historic lows

Yes you think you can't afford more - but neither could those people who are now old
But they did

Interesting that correlated with their lives getting better -