To be pissed off with even a discussion about calling 999 in a non emergency.

[Buddhagirl]

There is a serious problem in this country with people calling 999 or going to A&E for medical problems that can be sorted by non emergency services.

It really really annoys me. There should be no debate. The nhs is overstretched, ring nhs direct, call your gp, go to a pharmacy, go to a drop in clinic. If it is serious drive to casualty, if it's life threatening call an ambulance. AIBU to expect people to do this and respect the nhs?

HolidayArmadillo Exactly what I was wondering. If you rock up in an ambulance and aren't in active labour you get sent home again! You manage to get a taxi or car then!

D&V - the thread this was in relation to was about a diabetic with D and V, when you read that thread he certainly needed an ambulance

Headache - my sister had a severe headache, was driven to OOH where they put her in an ambulance to get to A and E

Its not always as black and white as some may see it.

StayAway - but it was hard to tell whether it was severe. It was a deep cut that initially was bleeding a lot (as headwounds do) and needed stitches. But it ended up being a minor injury. And as it turned out, she didn't lose consciousness in the end, although she did collapse! I'm honestly not trying to be awkward, just trying to illustrate how in the heat of the moment it can be hard to judge the best thing to do.

No it isn't black and white and there will always be exceptions, however common sense should prevail (the majority of people with a headache or D&V do not need a ride in an ambulance).

There's a difference between people phoning for an ambulance in relation to having a broken toenail and people that think they are having a stroke/heartattack. Because those two things can get easily confused with being the real thing when in fact they are not.

I believe that phoning for a broken toenail/pisshead/papercuts etc should be fined for wasting ambulance time/services, but not in the case of genuine worry where a person believes they are having heart attack etc.

I am an EMT working for a northern ambulance service. Around 70-80%, if not more of the jobs we go to are not life threatening incidents, however this does not mean you should not call an ambulance.

If an old person falls ( Doris down jobs we call them) and can not get up, ring us, there is no reason for them to wait on the floor for hours then call relatives who then call us. If they are on the floor call us. Some one earlier mentioned their child having an astma attack and not responding to their inhalers, then call us, breathing problems are given a very high priority and we carry two drugs we can give to help. No ambulance crew is going to critiscise a parent for calling an ambulance becaue their child is having breathing problems. An ambulance with a paramedic crew is not only about transport. If you are in severe pain then call us, we carry morphine and gas and air. A diabetic acting strange then give us a call we carry three drugs we can use.

111 has made our lives even busier. The call takers are not medically trained and just follow a script. When certain key words are used or there is an agregate high score for symptoms they call an ambulance. Weoften arrive at jobs where people are surprised to see us because 111 has called an ambulance. We also arrive at jobs where people are vey ill but dont want to be a bother, usually old people or mothers with young babies.

The vast majority of jobs that are inappropriate for us are down to people simply not knowing when to call for us, there are some entitled people who "pay your wages" but they are in the minority.

Women in labour, well if it is unexpected call us we can get you in much quicker than a taxi and if tehre are any complications again we can help.Yes we all moan about having 9 months to plan for it but I like births, they are yhe only time we take non sick people in and they are usually happy affairs.

The idea of charging for an ambulance sounds good at first but I am very much opposed to it. It would without doubt deter the old ill people, people on benefits, disabled etc who need us. The drunken idiots would not even thing about it and would not pay anyway.

There are way fewer ambulances than people realise. The grim northern town I work in has3 on duty at anyone time. That is for a decent sized town think ex premier league now championship level football club.

See I feel terrible now - I broke my foot at 2am on Hogmanay a couple of years ago, phoned NHS 24 who said it wasn't safe to leave it over night and asked me to make my way to casualty.

It would have cost me £60 to get to casualty (and £60 home) as nearest hospital is 30 miles away.. My mum can't drive and I could hardly bang on neighbours' doors begging for a lift - so nhs 24 provided an ambulance to take me in.

I did get an ear bashing from the hospital about wasting people's time and money, and feel terrible for doing so. Realistically I had no other way of getting to hospital without spending £120 or being carried onto 3 buses up to the hospital, but still feel awful!

Only other times I've had an ambulance for me was when I was a child, and both times they were arranged by doctors, so I think that's different - I had one for dehydration when I needed a drip, and a GP organised that one, think it was done because I was only 5!

I would have paid for the taxi personally.

Pobble re calling an ambulance when in labour, I did mean only AFTER speaking to your midwife/the maternity ward...I probably should have made that bit clear!

In my case as mentioned upthread, when I spoke to them and said I was on my own etc, I was told to call an ambulance. My DS was born within 2 hours of arriving at hospital.

120 was at the time more than I lived on per month though. Would have been a case of choosing between eating or finding out if I'd broken my foot..

£120 is a lot of money to most people, if you don't have it, you don't have it. Medical treatment is important and if that was the only way of getting there then yes i think you needed the ambulance.

I agree to a point, some people use ambulances in a ridiculous way. One thing I can't stand is seeing very drunk people scooped up off the street in one. My mum had a heart attack when I was a teenager, all the ambulances were busy and even though as my mum wasn't breathing she was apparently top priority it still took quite a lot of time to pluck an ambulance from someone else and get to her 20 minutes in fact. Of course she was dead before they arrived. Obviously all of the other calls could have been equally as serious but I doubt it.

On the other hand I have only called an ambulance once myself when my 11 month old started choking on believe it or not scrambled egg. One minute she was sitting there the next she just started willing thrashing her head against the back of the chair (hard enough to leave a nice lump!) she went purple and just sat there staring open mouthed no gagging or anything I know first aid and tried that but it just wasn't working and as she wasn't breathing I called an ambulance. They were there well it was less than 5 minutes I'm sure, as they pulled up outside she suddenly coughed up a load of blood and sick and started breathing again. By the time they got her to a and e to check her out she was laughing and pulling things off the shelves so I suppose if you saw me walk in you'd think I had used an ambulance needlessly but I really think I did the right thing calling when I did.

I felt quite reassured reading beitou's post. It's nice to know that paramedics don't all despise for calling them out on something that isn't life-threatening.

I have a very simple rule of thumb for the patients I see:

Round here, an ambulance costs £500-900 to bring you to hospital. If you would have paid that amount for the journey i.e. you were more concerned about your safety than cost, then it was worth calling an ambulance.

Funny how it focuses the mind.

I get your point WoW, but £500 to some people is pocket money, to others it's a months wages, so that's a needlessly over-simplistic way of looking at it.

OTOH, if I'm whizzing around with blue lights going, driving like a nutter on the wrong side of the road and generally taking risks with the public's safety (and my own) to get to you ASAP I would prefer it if you actually had something properly wrong with you (or at least time-critical) when we get there.

beitou They're 'Nan down' calls round these parts, but the principle is the same .

I think that "nan down" would also be the most afraid of a £500 charge, fwiw, despite being a clear candidate for an ambulance call

I have called an ambulance once in my life. During the labour of DS2.

It was on the hospital midwives insistence that I called it as they didn't think I would last the journey in a taxi.

Just as well I did as I gave birth in the ambulance just outside the hospital. If I had got a taxi, I wouldn't have made it out of my street and DS2 could have died as he came out with his cord round his neck.

Loads of people would end up dying rather than risk 500 quid for it to turn out to be heartburn not a heart attack. That's a ridiculous way to do it.

thanks beitou for a guide.

Also I expect underfunding is a much larger problem than the highly publicised every year or so 'called an ambulance because he couldn't get a contact lens out' type stories the papers run.

sorry I meant thanks beitou for your post,

thanks stayaway for the guide if not the stroppiness.

Doesn't get rid of the fact that people don't always know, can't always tell what is or is not significant.

Having read most of this, I can see why the OP is saying what she is. Okay, if you're not sure it's serious, but it's been reported that people have called 999 because they've run out of paracetamol late on a Saturday night..... The NHS resorted to giving out stats on reasons why people have called 999 to try to get across to the public when it is, or when it's not, appropriate to call 999.

I personally know an idiot who called 999 because he sprained his ankle rather than wait until the next morning to go to the GP.

This is what the OP is cross about, and I agree. There are more idiots out there than many posters on this thread realise. Most posters here have real reasons to have called 999, so it's not them the OP is concerned about.

Some of the most memorable I have encountered -
broken fingernail, split past the quick, bleeding and sore.
Cut to tip of finger, 4 hours ago, it's now midnight and the bleeding has stopped but thought he'd better get an ambulance and come to hospital 'just in case' (oh, and my last bus home went an hour ago and it's 12 miles so you'll HAVE to get me home - guy was early 20s).
Bloke scored with lass while out drinking, back to hers in a taxi, she lives about 10 miles away from his home opposite the hospital. Lass decides she no longer wants to shag bloke, kicks him out. He calls 999, says he has chest pain, then steps off the ambulance and goes home.
4am - fella in 50s, has been constipated for a week. Has GP appointment the next day but is uncomfortable and wants a colonoscopy. Now.
Very large lady, has bought new soft mattress. First night sleeping on same, felt like she was sinking into mattress. Panics, calls 999. Insists on going to hospital.
Many, many, many young students with their first bout of the runs caused by poor kitchen hygiene. Been sick x2, had 1 episode diarrhoea.
Hangovers. Many, many hangovers.

I could go on, and on, and on. People using ambulances inappropriately is a MASSIVE drain on resources, and every time it happens it means someone who really needs an ambulance has to wait longer.

Unless there is a limb hanging off or bleeding from an orifice, no ambulance.

Hangovers! Wow. Lifts! Double wow

I don't know how to put pictures on here but there is a good pic going around of people lining up at A&E saying 'this person has a cough, they should of gone to their gp' and ends with 'chest pain' and a wreath. There is a huge problem with people ringing 999 for the most minor of things and at the same time there is a big problem with people not wanting to 'bother them' or 'create a fuss' when they really do need to ring 999. I've had relatives at both ends of the spectrum, both were equally frustrating!