Page 4 | [warning: death, heartbreaking story] This is appalling. How could it have happened?

TraumaQuestions · 2025-07-21T16:48:36+00:00

A dying woman called 999 and asked for an ambulance, giving her address. No ambulance was dispatched. Nobody checked up on her. Her profoundly disabled daughter, who depended on her totally, also died. Nobody noticed for weeks or months. [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2z36yzzdlo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2z36yzzdlo]]

RainbowZebraWarrior · 21/07/2025 21:47

This is utterly horrific.

Let down by everyone.

Sunshineandrainbow · 21/07/2025 22:00

The ambulance service literally made every mother’s worst nightmare come true.

This 😢

BleachedJumper · 21/07/2025 22:08

Jellycatspyjamas · 21/07/2025 21:29

It’s very easy to see how this tragedy could happen if you’re any way involved in public service. The ambulance service has been on its knees for years, GP services more so, social care is barely existent and decent social work practically impossible.

That creates an environment where people are making decisions under enormous pressure, with little ongoing training. Do you send your one ambulance to the person you know is having a heart attack or the call that got abandoned. Add in some Reform thinking about race and immigration (which has seeped into every area of our lives) and the decision becomes easier because on a subconscious level there’s a rhetoric of British services for British people.

And so the decision (and the blame) comes to the individual who made the decision, not the financial, political and social systems they operate in.

It happens because people want every service under the sun, but don’t want to pay for them. Reduce your working hours and claim universal credit, top up your pension to avoid the next tax band, work cash in hand - the tax man takes too much anyway, campaign for more subsided childcare, create hell if there’s any talk to a benefits restructure, and for God’s sake don’t touch the winter fuel allowance. Immigrants should get nothing from the UK purse, send them back where they came from, people in small boats, let them drown. It all influences the day to day resources available, and the mindsets of the people deploying those resources.

People really don’t make the link to tragedies that then follow, ambulances not sent, services not doing welfare checks, children being left in squalor. And then the public, with scant information about the circumstances, the pressures of the job, the balancing that these workers do every single day, spout about how they hope those workers never sleep well again.

We get what we’re prepared to pay for, and these lovely, desperate people paid the price. That’s how it can happen.

This. Yep, all of this.

Wishing not a nights sleep on someone who’s job it is is to triage not two or three but 20/30 calls detailing serious medical needs every shift, that will inevitably lead to failure in services, is very blinkered.

Some people enjoy nothing more than a scapegoat.

‘Look over there!’ Said the problem.

PermanentTemporary · 21/07/2025 22:10

What @SolidarityCone said. Racist catastrophic failure. How on earth was a referral not made to social services the first time the mother discharged herself against medical advice because there was no other help for her vulnerable daughter.

Nearly unbearable to read. What about living and dying that way?

HikingforScenery · 21/07/2025 22:14

That is beyond sad. How awful for them both. A very very poor job was done by the call handler too. I hope they don’t still have a job. I mean even if there’s lack of training, what about emphathy? Humanity?

RattyMcBatty · 21/07/2025 22:20

If Loraine was 18 then surely she would have been in education so why were the school not conducting a welfare check?

Not sure that would have helped - there was a child a few years ago whose mum had died after a seizure I think, and after a couple of weeks the school did send someone round, but they left again when there was no answer from the door.

In this country I do feel that we step away too easily when we should be urgently calling police to help us get into houses/flats. Just because there's no answer doesn't mean there isn't a child at risk inside.

Dukekaboom · 21/07/2025 22:20

As a mother to a very disabled child, this is what I worry about every day. But in my darkest, bleakest moments, I also hope and pray we both die together at the same time so that my child isn't left without me.
It is just so incredibly sad. And speaks to how alone they were. RIP x

StasisMom · 21/07/2025 22:22

This is truly outrageous.

Jellycatspyjamas · 21/07/2025 22:24

HikingforScenery · 21/07/2025 22:14

That is beyond sad. How awful for them both. A very very poor job was done by the call handler too. I hope they don’t still have a job. I mean even if there’s lack of training, what about emphathy? Humanity?

Have you tried to triage 20-30 calls on a shift? Been keenly aware there are no ambulances available, had a timed response rate to do it all in?

Have you then tried to manage a shift of 15 people all triaging 20-30 calls on a shift? For a 6 hour shift of say 25 calls that’s less that 15 minutes per call to listen, respond, assess, deploy resources and/or seek your supervisors advice and to take any notes. Yes the decision was wrong, but the environment in which there were no checks and balances is more wrong. A society that constantly wants more while paying less is what caused this.

It is of course much easier to blame individuals than to look at the scarcity of resources in our whole system, to look at the pressures and the societal change needed to improve things.

Rubyupbeat · 21/07/2025 22:25

This is awful that poor girl must have been terrified.
I remember many years ago my mum phoning and saying she was so cold and couldn't move. We went round there and called an ambulance, She also had pneumonia and was mid 50's, very scary. She was fine the day before.

TiswasPhantomFlanFlinger · 21/07/2025 22:29

Elasticareboot · 21/07/2025 20:13

What kind of a broken down place are we living in that we let sole carers of high needs family discharge themselves when very sick themselves with no support?

these things are always the same, many failures stacked together, nobody taking responsibility and no proper care.

There are hundreds of thousands of sole carers looking after relatives, who are disabled or have dementia, who have no outside support. It is far from unusual, sadly.

Soontobesingles · 21/07/2025 22:40

Whoooo · 21/07/2025 18:51

Having to rely on emas is terrifying.
My mum was having a stroke last year and I rang 999 and was told to take her to a&e in the car because ambulance would be 8 hours.
For a cat 1 call.
I can totally believe this happened.
Poor women :(

In 2017 my sister was hit by an articulated lorry, she lay by the side of the road with her feet detached from her body - she was conscious but obviously in agony and severely injured. When a passerby rang for an ambulance they told him that it was too busy and they could only dispatch to unconscious patients!!! Fortunately he thought on his feet and rang back lying she was unconscious but she would have died of her injuries had he not done that. Emergency response is in a terrible state - some of the dispatchers have zero common sense.

Soontobesingles · 21/07/2025 22:44

Jellycatspyjamas · 21/07/2025 22:24

Have you tried to triage 20-30 calls on a shift? Been keenly aware there are no ambulances available, had a timed response rate to do it all in?

Have you then tried to manage a shift of 15 people all triaging 20-30 calls on a shift? For a 6 hour shift of say 25 calls that’s less that 15 minutes per call to listen, respond, assess, deploy resources and/or seek your supervisors advice and to take any notes. Yes the decision was wrong, but the environment in which there were no checks and balances is more wrong. A society that constantly wants more while paying less is what caused this.

It is of course much easier to blame individuals than to look at the scarcity of resources in our whole system, to look at the pressures and the societal change needed to improve things.

Show quote history

I don’t disagree with the argument that there is systemic failure. However there also needs to be accountability. This person was dying, begging for an ambulance and her call was ignored. She was then found dead with her dependant child in her home. Someone (not just a system) - a person with capacity to help her failed and should be responsible for that.

Jellycatspyjamas · 21/07/2025 22:48

Soontobesingles · 21/07/2025 22:44

I don’t disagree with the argument that there is systemic failure. However there also needs to be accountability. This person was dying, begging for an ambulance and her call was ignored. She was then found dead with her dependant child in her home. Someone (not just a system) - a person with capacity to help her failed and should be responsible for that.

Show quote history

I’m pretty sure they’ll carry the responsibility of that for the rest of their lives, someone dying on your watch is both life and career changing - as it should be. You cannot however run vital services on less than a shoe-string and then deny that that impacts every single thing that happens in that service, including individual decision making.

HikingforScenery · 21/07/2025 22:52

Jellycatspyjamas · 21/07/2025 22:24

Have you tried to triage 20-30 calls on a shift? Been keenly aware there are no ambulances available, had a timed response rate to do it all in?

Have you then tried to manage a shift of 15 people all triaging 20-30 calls on a shift? For a 6 hour shift of say 25 calls that’s less that 15 minutes per call to listen, respond, assess, deploy resources and/or seek your supervisors advice and to take any notes. Yes the decision was wrong, but the environment in which there were no checks and balances is more wrong. A society that constantly wants more while paying less is what caused this.

It is of course much easier to blame individuals than to look at the scarcity of resources in our whole system, to look at the pressures and the societal change needed to improve things.

Show quote history

What would make someone who was so cold they couldn’t move drop a call? What’s the likelihood of them suddenly getting better and not needing help. Yes less money towards services etc etc. I stand by my opinion that empathy and the handler being able to see the caller’s humanity here would have made a difference.

smallglassbottle · 21/07/2025 22:58

This is so terrible. Poor women. I don't know how it's come to this.

Sunrisewatcher · 22/07/2025 06:07

'Missed Opportunity '... Like it was a fucking business transaction!!!. This is the brutal outcome of privatising essential services 🥹

BellissimoGecko · 22/07/2025 06:35

This is just awful. To think that people don’t have a network to check in on them…

and what help was Alphonsine getting with Loraine? Were SS involved?

the article says that the hosp and GP tried to call after Alphonsine left hospital, but didn’t get through. How hard did they try?

More should be done in such situations. You think of all the ambos sent out to drug addicts and so on, but not to this poor woman, who was desperately in need?

And their neighbours - did they notice they hadn’t seen the women for a while?

What will happen to the emergency operator? What sanctions?

BellissimoGecko · 22/07/2025 06:36

Soontobesingles · 21/07/2025 22:40

In 2017 my sister was hit by an articulated lorry, she lay by the side of the road with her feet detached from her body - she was conscious but obviously in agony and severely injured. When a passerby rang for an ambulance they told him that it was too busy and they could only dispatch to unconscious patients!!! Fortunately he thought on his feet and rang back lying she was unconscious but she would have died of her injuries had he not done that. Emergency response is in a terrible state - some of the dispatchers have zero common sense.

Show quote history

My god, your poor sister. Could I ask, did she recover? How is she now?

Maverickess · 22/07/2025 06:55

Jellycatspyjamas · 21/07/2025 21:29

It’s very easy to see how this tragedy could happen if you’re any way involved in public service. The ambulance service has been on its knees for years, GP services more so, social care is barely existent and decent social work practically impossible.

That creates an environment where people are making decisions under enormous pressure, with little ongoing training. Do you send your one ambulance to the person you know is having a heart attack or the call that got abandoned. Add in some Reform thinking about race and immigration (which has seeped into every area of our lives) and the decision becomes easier because on a subconscious level there’s a rhetoric of British services for British people.

And so the decision (and the blame) comes to the individual who made the decision, not the financial, political and social systems they operate in.

It happens because people want every service under the sun, but don’t want to pay for them. Reduce your working hours and claim universal credit, top up your pension to avoid the next tax band, work cash in hand - the tax man takes too much anyway, campaign for more subsided childcare, create hell if there’s any talk to a benefits restructure, and for God’s sake don’t touch the winter fuel allowance. Immigrants should get nothing from the UK purse, send them back where they came from, people in small boats, let them drown. It all influences the day to day resources available, and the mindsets of the people deploying those resources.

People really don’t make the link to tragedies that then follow, ambulances not sent, services not doing welfare checks, children being left in squalor. And then the public, with scant information about the circumstances, the pressures of the job, the balancing that these workers do every single day, spout about how they hope those workers never sleep well again.

We get what we’re prepared to pay for, and these lovely, desperate people paid the price. That’s how it can happen.

All of this.

As long as a head or two is on a spike for the public to see, the systematic failures will continue to worsen and these things will continue to happen and the cycle will just keep repeating.

Mistakes will always be made where humans are concerned, it's unavoidable, however the mistakes and effects can be minimised with systems that are robust, that work, that have enough funding to work and be robust. We don't have that, we have a broken system we're expecting humans to hold together under more and more pressure with less and less resources. It doesn't work.

But the handler and/or the manager will be scapegoated for all the failures that led to this and people will have a name or face to blame and go back to their lives until the next time, and the time after that, and the one after that.

That's not to say the role of the call handler and manager shouldn't be looked at and the decisions questioned, but we need to see what a) led to the situation where someone caring for their profoundly disabled child had no support meaning an ambulance was their only chance of this being caught, especially after a physical illness requiring hospitalisation and b) what pressures are on the service when it's got to that point to influence the decision to close the call and not send the ambulance.

No good expecting a perfect service from individuals within a very broken framework.

musicalfrog · 22/07/2025 07:20

Dukekaboom · 21/07/2025 22:20

As a mother to a very disabled child, this is what I worry about every day. But in my darkest, bleakest moments, I also hope and pray we both die together at the same time so that my child isn't left without me.
It is just so incredibly sad. And speaks to how alone they were. RIP x

This made me cry, I can't imagine the worry.

I know the inquest is ongoing, but it does sound like they are trying to 'get away' with this. Excuses!

Everyone saying don't scapegoat.. so you'd rather nobody took the responsibility then? Systems may be broken but these are jobs with high responsibility and should be done properly! You wouldn't expect a negligent surgeon to keep working would you?

And re home counties accent - it's the East Midlands so I don't expect they get many of those anyway. But I do take the point.

So sorry for these two ladies. It's really not good enough.

WhatNoRaisins · 22/07/2025 07:26

I think on a societal level we've reduced the people (let's face it usually women) who look after their profoundly disabled children to support humans. There should have been some real, practical support in place given that this woman was ill enough to be hospitalised. But no, apparently these people "cope because they have to" so it's not necessary.

Slightlysimi · 22/07/2025 07:28

Normally I wouldn’t comment without reading the whole article but that headline was enough to bring me to tears so I won’t. This is utterly horrific. I don’t have the words to express how messed up this is.

Jellycatspyjamas · 22/07/2025 07:31

Everyone saying don't scapegoat.. so you'd rather nobody took the responsibility then? Systems may be broken but these are jobs with high responsibility and should be done properly! You wouldn't expect a negligent surgeon to keep working would you?

These are highly responsible jobs, paying around £24k a year - so just above minimum wage. We get what we’re prepared to pay for.

spoonbillstretford · 22/07/2025 07:37

Redburnett · 21/07/2025 19:23

This is what happens with a fragmented NHS. There is no joining up of pieces of information and it leaves each individual involved able to pass the buck to someone else. I blame the GP as much as the call handler, saying they were 'unable to contact her' when advised by the hospital that she missed hospital appointments is not acceptable given the circumstances - what did they think had happened to a sick woman with responsibility for a disabled child? Primary care in this country is appalling since Covid, any excuse not to actually see a patient.

Exactly, what did the GP think had happened?